


Screw Your Space-Time Continuum

by itsureismyusername



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 80's ski fashion?!? why of course, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Back to the Future References, Canon-Typical Violence, Certified "I Normally Hate This Ship But This Time It's Ok", Divergent Timelines, Gondola Fight Scene, Infinity Gems, M/M, MIT Era, Memory Alteration, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Skiing, Slow Burn, Teenage Tony Stark, blatant disregard of lab safety procedures, bro we are teens, cameos from characters ALL OVER the MCU but I don't wanna spoil anything, genius teenagers, it basically is Back to the Future but Thanos is the Delorian, lots of spidey-powers and Stark tech, most trigger warnings moved to chapter summaries, this is NOT shipping adult Tony with a teenager THAT'S GROSS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-02-07 12:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsureismyusername/pseuds/itsureismyusername
Summary: At the moment Peter is 17 years old, plus 8 months, 19 days, 11 hours, 1 minute and 32 seconds. He is supposed the be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man of Queens, New York. Only instead, he's on another planet, staring down a dude who looks like the California Raisin got jacked, and he's scared shitless.When Peter is 17 years, 8 months, 19 days, 11 hours, 1 minute and 33 seconds old, he is still Spider-Man. He is still from Queens. He is supposed to be... somewhere. Probably not a hospital bed in 1987 Massachusetts. What the hell did he do this time?Plot-divergent AU starting from mid-Infinity War, in which Thanos decides to test out his newly acquired Infinity Stones in an interesting form of revenge/mercy/torture. Not a fic for people who support pedo ships. Currently on hiatus until I have enough writing done to keep up a decent updating schedule!
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 199
Kudos: 465





	1. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

**Author's Note:**

> OK, I just want to be clear right away, that I have always been a fan of young, 1980s Tony Stark as a character. And I love MCU Peter Parker with all my little heart. This is NOT a fic about adult Tony Stark, though it is set in the MCU canon. If you ship Tony/Peter under the typical canon circumstances, this is definitely NOT that, in fact I can promise you won't be getting any adult Tony Stark outside of this first chapter. As much as I appreciate father-figure Tony, this isn't that either. This is my own mind-palace exploration of how cool it would be for two young teenage geniuses to hang out and kick ass together. And it's just a fact that young Tony would be instantly go heart-eyes for anyone who knows more than him about technology and can also lift a car over his head. I mean come on. We both know I'm right. 
> 
> Even if you aren't here for that, the emphasis of this fic is the time-travel shenanigans and hero stuff and nerdy science teens. Slow burn AF.
> 
> [Edit as of Oct 2020 - hey there y'all. I am gonna add onto this a bit. I am an adult. A lot of people reading this are minors. And a lot of those minors ship young Peter with old Tony, or ship regardless of age. I'm sure a lot of you know this, and it's not my place to tell you young'ns what to ship, but I just have to get on my soapbox and really say it: romantic relationships between adults and minors are NEVER ok. ESPECIALLY based on the relationship Tony Stark and Peter Parker have in the MCU, because it is a textbook setup for grooming and power coercion. Grooming, for those of you who don't know, is the process of gradually manipulating different types of power over another person until they have virtually no control and feel they have to accept the relationship. It's a form of sexual predation and abuse, and usually done to minors. Apparently, "it's like we were just born in the wrong decades" is a narrative that some groomers use to excuse the age difference. I simply cannot stress enough: time. travel. is. fictional. If I had known how this trope was used by predators, I probably would not have written this, though it is genuinely intended to be a relationship between two teenagers and nothing more. Please, never let yourself believe a real life relationship between someone born in the 1970s and someone born in the 2000s is okay. I encourage you to engage with me in the comments if you disagree or want to know more. I was a victim, and I would do anything to prevent it from happening to others. 🖤 Okay, end of scary rant.]
> 
> Please enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: semi-suicidal thoughts, hospitals, canon-typical violence involving minors, canon implied parental neglect  
(Also btw this chapter has been edited since it was first published, and moreso than other chapters will probably continue to be edited, because it's the chapter I re-read the most often. Therefore I'm obsessed with making minor changes!)

_ Uh oh, overflow, population, common group _

_ But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself _

_ World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed _

_ ... _

_ It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) and I feel fine _

\- - - - 

Things don't normally go according to plan. Not when it matters. But as his own nano-blade enters his abdomen, and he collapses into the wreckage of a desolate planet light-years away from everything he has ever known, Tony Stark realizes this time things are _ really _ not going according to plan.

"You have my respect Stark," Thanos says calmly, placing a condescending hand into his hair. Tony tries not to think of Obi in that moment. But even as the blood loss turns his vision hazy, he realizes the two are quite similar. Something about the bald men in his life.

"When I'm done half of humanity will still be alive." Thanos rears back, but slowly, relishing whatever he's about to do next. "I hope they remember you."

As Thanos raises his fist, Tony feels slightly lucky that he doesn't have to live through another aftermath of yet another one of his failures. The most devastating one to date. He should probably feel guilty, or at least afraid. But hey, Thanos would make it quick. He seems to take pride in being pragmatic about killing, and as dramatic as possible at _ everything _ else.

Tony inhales, his last lungful of oxygen laced with ozone. He’s ready, he realizes numbly. Ready for the drama to be over.

"Stop." Strange cuts in, gritting his teeth. Tony grits along with him. "Spare his life. And I will give you the stone." 

_ Wait, what? _ Dumbfounded, Tony runs the sorcerer’s logic over in his head. Wasn’t there all that magic jumbo about how Thanos couldn't even take the Time Stone from his dead body? And Strange had specifically said he would not hesitate to sacrifice him and Peter - oh shit, _ Peter _ \- in favor of protecting the stone. And he was the one who knew exactly how small their chances of winning were. Strange’s voice is winded, but grounded in certainty. _ What the fuck is he doing? _

"No tricks," Thanos utters.

_ That's my line, asshole. _ Tony thinks.

This is a cruel tactical decision clearly optimized by Strange to make Tony regret his existence as much as possible. To both lose _ and _ keep living. Again.

"Don't," Tony chokes out as Thanos raises his fist, only this time not to end his life. Just the lives of half of everyone. Pepper. Rhodey. Happy. Peter. Which ones would he lose, and which ones would never look him in the eye again?

As Thanos takes the stone in hand, with the smug satisfaction of - well, nearly every patriarchal figure in his life - Tony fixes his gaze on Peter in the distance. 

The kid had managed to safely web up everyone who had been knocked out in the fray. The suit shows his share of nasty blows, but he moves with the speed of someone who hasn’t given up yet. Even in total defeat, he's still a better hero than Tony could be. _ Father figure my ass. _ Tony thinks. He's more like the cracked out uncle who buys shit for the young kids' attention.

He can't read most emotions through the Spider mask, but it certainly means something that while Quill flies in for one last desperate shot at Thanos (only to be swatted away effortlessly) Spider-Man makes a beeline for _ Tony _. The poor thing actually cares about him.

Even more unfortunate is how Peter skids a landing close to him just in time to catch Thanos' attention again. Thanos looks at the Spider, then flexes his hand in the gauntlet, clearly recalling how close Peter had been to prying it off just minutes before.

_ No. God no. _

Peter, who has grabbed Tony by the arm at this point, goes very still under the gaze of the purple giant. Tony can only do the same.

Thanos raises his hand yet again in their direction, fingers stretched back like he's admiring a fresh manicure or a dazzling engagement ring. He tilts his head, perhaps finding just the right angle of light that makes the stones sparkle. The look in his eyes, however, is pained, wistful, bringing to mind Mantis’ ‘reading’ of his emotions - _ he mourns _.

"The power of time. It's such a funny thing," Thanos says, though he’s not laughing. "We always imagine what it would be like to wield it, but to mix it with control of _ space _ ? Of _ reality _?" He turns his head to lock eyes with Tony, his palm fixed towards Spider-Man. Peter squeezes his arm tighter.

"...why, I'd have the ability to do _ this _ without you caring one bit."

"Mr. Sta-"

In a flash, the stones glow, Thanos closes his fist as if to crush a fly, and Peter Parker is gone.

_ ...Parker? Who is that? _

"One to go," Thanos says as he backs into a cloud of cosmic energy, “I hope the boy enjoys the extra time.”

And with that, Thanos, and all their plans to stop him, have vanished into space-smoke.

Tony feels like he's missing something. Something other than just a quarter of the blood from his body. His arm is... not cold. But not warm where it seems like it should be.

"Did we just lose?" Quill spits out in a matching amount of confusion. That's the easiest question to answer, in Tony's opinion. They had lost about 3 stones ago. He could think of about 10,000 better questions to ask right now.

"Why would you do that?" is the only question that comes out, however, as he looks at Strange. He's pretty sure he wasn't going to find a satisfying answer from him. He doesn't even want to speak to him, but at the end of his fleeing train of thought he swears he had something he was going to say to someone he knew from Earth...

\- - - -

What's the best way to explain what happens to Peter? 

In all the movies he's seen about time travel, or amnesia, or general reality-fucking, you can't really say "what happens next..." because next is a relative term. Like how Marty McFly goes back to his present from the past then back to the past from the future and then to his present again but this time Biff has his own museum? To the main character, while the rules of the world break around them, the only thing that really remains constant is that they keep getting older, which is kind of a raw deal when you think about it.

The point is, one moment Peter is 17 years old, plus 8 months, 19 days, 11 hours, 1 minute and 32 seconds. He is _ supposed _ the be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man from Queens. Only, he's on another planet, holding onto a broken and bleeding Iron Man's suit-exposed arm for dear life. He's also staring down a dude who looks like the California Raisin got jacked, and he's scared shitless.

When Peter is 17 years, 8 months, 19 days, 11 hours, 1 minute and 33 seconds old, he is still Spider-Man. He is still from Queens. He is supposed to be... somewhere. Probably not a hospital bed. It seems like everything just got a lot brighter, and his head is killing him. Honestly, his whole body is killing him. He’s wrapped in various bandages and dressed in a hospital gown. What the hell did he do this time?

Luckily, he's still Spider-Man, so without getting up he can easily read his chart even though it is hung on a clipboard on the opposite wall. 

_ John Doe _ it reads. _ 04-29-87 14:02 Found unconscious, with level of trauma indicative of an automobile accident. No other persons at the scene. No eyewitnesses. Police report filed for probable hit-and-run. Keep on watch for possible PTSD and cognitive trauma. _

Nope. Peter had dealt with cars before, even had them thrown at him, and by the next day he'd be more worried about his group project in U.S. history. If he had ended up here, whatever he had gotten into this time was much worse. _ Yikes. _

Also, what kind of hospital was this? The equipment in the room looks extremely dated, yet somehow well taken care of, like mint condition. He’d expect tech like this in some of the clinics in less gentrified boroughs, but then why would it be so pristine? He looks at the letterhead on the chart. _ Cambridge Hospital. 1493 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA. _

Whoa. He is not supposed to be in Boston. Unless there was a school trip he had thoroughly forgotten about, but he hadn't been able to convince Aunt May to let him go out of state since the DC debacle.

"Dude... did you just show up out of thin air?"

Peter nearly flips out of his bed as he realizes he was not the only occupant of the room this whole time. Good thing his identity was a secret, or it would simply be embarrassing for the lack of use of his Spidey-sense. To his right, a guy with pale skin and dark hair, about his age, it seems, has pulled back the separation curtain between them. He is staring at Peter with a somewhat glossy look in his chocolate brown eyes.

"To be fair, I am _ really _ high right now dude," he adds, exhaling with a chuckle.

"What-" Peter starts to ask, and stops himself. This guy seems nice, but not like a reliable source for information. Not at the moment at least.

Instead he cranes his neck so he can just barely look at his chart. Before he can read the rest of it, he is taken aback by the name:

_ Anthony E Stark _

_ Stark? _

"Like the tech company?" he wonders aloud.

The guy scoffs. "It's my dad's company. And he only makes money from nukes these days. Considering he barely helped invent those in the 40s, not quite what I'd consider 'tech,'" he finishes with air quotes.

That didn't make sense. Nuclear tech was the specialty of _ Howard _ Stark, who hasn't been involved with Stark Industries since -

Peter's eyes go wide and he turns back to his chart, putting things together more quickly than he thinks he can handle.

_ 04-29-87 _

April 29th, 1987. 

Nineteen-eighty-fucking-seven. This hospital isn't dated. No, it's probably brand-spanking-new.

Peter Parker is absolutely not supposed to be here.

"Hey man, this isn't how I planned to spend my Wednesday either," the guy responds to words Peter hadn't meant to say out loud. 

“And call me Tony. Anthony is reserved for my mom, and people who alphabetize,” he adds, slurring ever so slightly.

Peter's jaw drops, because if it wasn't enough that he had time traveled to the 80s, he was sharing a hospital room with the future inventor of the Mini Arc Reactor.

\- - - -

Of course, the doctor came into the room in perfect timing, just when Peter was starting to fully freak out. (As opposed to what he had been doing - staring blankly at the ceiling for the past fifteen-ish minutes.)

"Oh, good to see you're awake. I'm Dr. Richards. You're in the emergency room of Cambridge Hospital. I imagine you're feeling uncomfortable but you should be alright soon enough. What is your name, son?" the older woman asks cooly from behind her clipboard.

"Peter. Parker." He chokes out. Should he be using his real name? Too late now.

"My notes say you encountered some serious head trauma. Can you tell me what year it is, Peter?"

"1987?" Peter offers hesitantly, like this is his last chance to find out it was all a joke.

The doctor nods, now clicking on a flashlight and shining it to check his pupils.

"And who is the president of the United States?"

_ Shit _. Peter was not a genius at history. He swallows. But he counts himself lucky on this one.

"Ronald Reagan."

Thank God he had watched Back to the Future so many times. According to the scene, it was now the doc's turn to incredulously exclaim _ "THE ACTOR??" _ but instead she leans back in her seat, satisfied.

"I must say, you're showing signs of healing remarkably well, Peter." _ Oops. Probably shouldn't be in a hospital. _ He had enough to explain beyond having radioactive spider healing.

"Can you remember anything about how you got here?" she asks, just a bit more softly.

"No." Peter answers honestly. The doctor's mouth turns down at the corners.

"What's the last thing you can remember?"

Peter can only stare dumbly at the doctor for a few seconds. Before he has time to think of a good answer, his roommate chimes in.

"He appeared in a flash of cosmic energy doc, of course he doesn't remember!"

The doctor turns to the guy - young _ Tony Stark _ \- and throws back the curtain, looking at him like a strained school teacher.

"I think you're just about ready to go home Mr. Stark. At the very least you should be done with that morphine drip."

Tony smiles sweetly at her.

"If you promise not to mess with explosive propulsion mechanics unsupervised again, I can check you out after you've had time to clear your head. I'll write you a prescription for a bit of percocet to take as needed," she says.

"I should probably - can you, uh, check me out, too?" Peter cringes at the awkward phrasing. The doctor turns back to him, now looking as confused as he feels.

"Not so fast young man. I’ve barely begun to assess your condition,” she glances back at the chart like she might be checking for ‘dumbass’ in his records. 

"If you're reporting memory issues with a head injury, I'd like to schedule you for an MRI. Do you have any family history of-"

“No, no, I’m fine. I promise,” Peter insists.

"As much as I hope that is true, I would be much more confident after some tests. The extent of your injuries could be more serious than you think. According to your intake sheet, I'm not ready to rule out internal hemorrhaging."

"Maybe that stuff was exaggerated, y'know? You just said I'm doing surprisingly good, right?" Peter argues timidly. He feels bad for questioning an ER doctor, having dropped off a dozen or so injured New Yorkers in his time Spider-man-ing. They work far too hard for the harassment they get. But knowing how over-worked they are, he hopes the doctor could be convinced to clear his bed for a more urgent patient.

“Mr. Parker, I must ask you again: how much do you actually remember?" the doctor retorts with a pressed expression. "Do you have an explanation for your condition that you are not telling us? What can you tell me about _ who you are _?" 

He looks at Tony, panicked, like there's something the blitzed out future-billionaire could offer to help him in this situation. He just looks back at Peter curiously.

"I don't... I don't _ have _ to tell you that, right?" The doctor fully frowns at that.

"No, I suppose you don't. And I can't legally force you to stay here. But there's also the matter of _ who _ I check you out to, Mr. Parker. How old are you exactly?"

"18," Peter tries to say convincingly. It's not _ that _ far off. Tony smiles as the doctor abjectly rolls her eyes.

"I’m sure you are,” the doctor sighs. She is taking notes of this conversation, and Peter is pretty sure he sees her write quotation marks around that number. “And where would I be sending the bill for this hospital visit, sir?"

That's not even a question Peter would like to answer when he _ hasn't _ been mysteriously transported across space and time. What little he knows about emergency healthcare options might not even apply anymore, and it would still involve giving out more official information than he can spare. The immediate response his brain comes up with is a sort of whine, which will have to turn into a convincing explanation in 3… 2… 1...

"Probably could send it to the dorms at MIT right?" Tony interjects from the sidelines.

"Wha-"

"I mean, assuming you don't want your parents on your ass for the bill? Been there!" he continues.

"Mr. Stark-"

"Do you by any chance live in Baker House?" Tony looks at Peter with a gleam in his eye.

"...yes," Peter does his best to go along with whatever is happening right now. He nods back at the doctor for emphasis.

"No way man! I _ thought _ I recognized you. Same building and everything. We should really hang out more."

The doctor is now looking back and forth between the two, completely exasperated.

"Is this true?" she asks Peter, now her turn to have a pleading expression.

"Y-yeah, yes. Freshman at MIT! I'm… studying electrical engineering." It’s the best story he can think of pulling off, considering he has the technical knowledge of thirty-ish years in the future.

"Yeah… he's in some classes with me," Tony adds. He looks intrigued at Peter's choice of fib. Peter, meanwhile, is glad Tony seems to be on board with this charade because he really should have known said department could be shared by _ the world's most well-known inventor. _

The doctor, meanwhile, looks utterly defeated. "Well, I guess I'll be checking you both out - one of you_ against _ medical advice," she clicks her pen rather menacingly and jots onto Peter's chart. If 'dumbass' wasn’t in there before, it probably is now.

"Should I call a cab for you to go back to campus together?" she adds sarcastically.

"Nah, it's fine, I have my own car!" Tony replies sweetly, throwing her a bandaged thumbs up as he flops back down on his bed. 

The doctor responds only by humming in a way that says ‘this is my best possible execution of bedside manner.’ 

Tony, in contrast, has decided to end the conversation by immediately falling asleep with a dopey expression on his face.

Beyond being extremely grateful for him saving his ass unprompted, Peter has decided that he is really starting to like Tony Stark.

\- - - -

Peter doesn't know if he should feel grateful or disappointed that when a nurse hands him his bundle of clothes, it _ isn't _ a spandex spider suit.

The clothes he finds instead are reminiscent of the original Spidey getup, in a way. A droopy red v-neck sweatshirt. Blue high-waisted jeans. Red high-tops, blue undershirt, and so on. He cringes a bit when he sees that in place of his web-shooters are two black wrist bands. _ Radical! _

It's all very retro to Peter, even though it's more unnerving that he doesn't understand why he would fit so well into this time period. He wonders if maybe he Quantum-Leaped into someone else's body. If he looks in a mirror, is he going to see Scott Bacula? He's never actually seen that show, but it's the closest thing to a theory that he's got. 

Only, when he checks his clothes for signs of a previous owner, like a name written on the shirt tag, he finds there _ aren't _ any tags. Or even name brands. They're so generic it's uncanny.

Even the backpack he was handed with the rest of his clothes is empty, except for -

"Hey, Desperately Seeking Susan, are you decent?" Tony raps on the wall as if to knock but swings around the divider anyway.

Tony is dressed in belted red chinos, a light wash denim jacket, and a gold-ish button up. Or at least, he's pretty sure it would be that color if it wasn't half splattered up the right side in soot from whatever explosion supposedly landed him in the ER in the first place. His right arm is still bandaged, and now that Peter has the chance to really look at him, there are some shrapnel-like cuts on his face.

He recalls the nurse giving instructions about keeping the skin clean and when to change the bandages. It was hard to pay attention over his own extensive warnings and prescriptions, though Peter is certain he'll be needing them far less than his fellow patient.

At least his eyes are looking clearer now, and that's good. Tony notices that he's being scanned, and flashes a reassuring (almost flirtatious?) smile.

"Come on, my ride will be here soon."

Tony reaches out his good arm to help Peter up. Not that he needs it, but he takes it anyway, and offers a smile in return. Peter is just relieved that they won't be here long enough for the nurse to change his bandages again, since she'd most likely be unnerved by the complete vanishing act most of his injuries pull within 24 hours. Even now, Peter is sore, but probably not as sore as he should be.

While Peter thinks to himself _ how does someone who has recently been hit by a car walk? And how do I look like a totally normal person from the 80s on top of that? Did people walk differently back then? _ Tony strides out the door with the confidence of a grown man who totally didn't just sober up from serious opiates.

They have to swing by the front desk to finalize their respective release forms. A tired looking nurse reaches from behind the counter with a clipboard in each hand. As Peter takes his with a quiet "thank you" Tony takes a small step back.

"I don't like being handed things," he mutters.

The nurse rolls her eyes and drops the clipboard on the counter with an indignant clatter.

He and Tony fill out their forms in the waiting room which has grown quiet - it’s past 11 PM at this point, not really visitor hours for whatever wing of the hospital this is. Peter's form is considerably longer, filled with warnings about leaving the hospital against the advice of medical staff, essentially making him promise not to sue the hospital if he dies in his sleep tonight.

It's all totally fine with Peter, until he gets to the billing information section. He turns to Tony, who seems to be at the end of his own clipboard.

"Um," Peter starts, trying to fit a thousand questions into the strained syllable. Remembering Tony's earlier reaction, he places his forms on the side table between them and nudges it towards the brunet. "Do- uh, could you?"

Without super senses he would have surely missed it, but there is a slight softening in Tony's expression when he sees the effort of Peter's gesture.

"Still can't remember your own dorm address?" Tony tuts at him in mock disapproval, shaking the pen in time. "Typical freshman."

He picks up the clipboard regardless, and slides his own towards Peter.

"Here. You can sign off as my legal-guardian-slash-witness. Since you're 18 and all," he winks.

"But wait... Don't you... Should your _ dad _ sign it or something?"

Tony's expression shifts again, this time hardening a few shades. His brow flexes a micrometer down, but he forces a smirk through.

"He's a busy man. I'm a reckless teen doing what reckless teens do. These things are below his pay grade. He'll get the memo eventually." He doesn't look up as he fills out the form. 

"Oh... Ok." Peter didn't exactly have a frame of reference for daddy issues, what with not having one himself, but even he could tell it was a sensitive subject.

"T-thanks man," he adds, nodding towards where Tony is writing what must be his own mailing address for the bill. "Should I-"

"I'm the one who's rich dude," Tony cuts him off. "Unless you're gonna tell me you're hiding a secret billionaire identity, count this one as a freebie just for being such a doll. I'll tell my dad thanks."

Peter blushes, partly because he realizes there's really no way he could pay Tony back anyway.

Rather than push the subject, he scrawls his signature on the witness line. He feels slightly ashamed about lying, like they are two kids in a trenchcoat trying to buy booze. Not that anyone could verify his age. But honestly, shouldn't Tony Stark have other friends, or like, assistants who would help out in these situations? As opposed to playing along with an apparent lying, homeless, teenage amnesiac?

When he's finished, Tony scoops up both clipboards and slides them over to the nurse who serves him a dispassionate glare.

"I get it, hun. They don't pay you enough to smile," Tony smirks at the woman as he heads for the door.

Peter realizes that this just about ends their little charade. He's now free of the hospital... And ready to roam around Boston with little to no idea how anything works.

_ Could I call someone? Aunt May? Pay phones are a thing now. Pay phones need quarters. I could probably find a quarter. What's my aunt's phone number in 1987? How old is she? How should I introduce myself?? What if she tries to make out with me at the school dance??? W- _

Tony whistles, holding the door open impatiently.

"Princess Anastasia! You coming or not?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah!" Peter tries to tamper down his excitement as he scoops up his backpack and follows him out into the chilly night air.

"So, uh, are you seriously okay with me, like, following you?" Peter glances around to make sure the doctor isn't somehow listening in.

"That like, depends," Tony mimics. "Do you seriously not have anywhere else to go?"

After a beat, Peter just shrugs pitifully.

"And yet you don't want to stay in the warm hospital with the people who want to treat you and figure out what happened to you?"

Peter shakes his head fervently.

"Cool. I like mysteries," Tony shrugs back.

"But how do you know I'm not a junkie who's gonna rob you for drug money in your sleep?" Peter protests.

At that, Tony whips around, grabbing Peter by his shoulder and tugging him down slightly to stare deep into his eyes.

"Are you a junkie who's gonna rob me for drug money in my sleep?" Tony asks, all serious with a look that shoots a laser beam into Peter’s soul.

"N-no!"

"Great! Then it's settled." Tony steps back looking satisfied with his brief interrogation. 

“...and you’re welcome,” he adds.

“Oh, yeah, thanks! Seriously, thank you.” Peter blushes and rubs at his shoulder where Tony’s hand had been. "I know I shouldn't be pushing my luck dude, but is it a good idea for you to even hang out with random strangers? Aren't you kinda famous?" he asks.

Tony throws back his head and laughs, more amused at this idea than he was the first time Peter hinted at his reputation.

"The only people I'm 'famous' to are extremely boring. I doubt your average military contractor cares who I kick it with. And the only person who even knows where I am right now is Rhodey," Tony looks over Peter's shoulder and smiles.

"Speak of the devil. Our ride's here."


	2. Should I Stay Or Should I Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: PTSD/panic attacks, brief alluding to Tony's teenage hormones but it's all PG-13 (author is over 18, but doing my best to write a teen romance respectfully!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your response to the first chapter! Just gonna mention that I retconned Peter and Tony's ages, but only slightly, because the MCU makes it very confusing, and if I was going by what the MCU wiki says it would make Peter 14 during Civil War. And call me crazy, but if you're too young for a learner's permit, you're too young to fight vigilante super soldiers. Although I guess the whole 'willful child endangerment' issue is why I wrote this fic and revoked Tony's father-figure/mentor status in the first place.  
As mentioned last chapter, the notes at the end will include an explanation of how the time travel works (technically a spoiler, because it will all be explained eventually). But first, I'll confuse you even more with this chapter. Let's go!

_ If you don't want me, set me free  _

_ Exactly whom I'm supposed to be  _

_ Don't you know which clothes even fit me?  _

_ Come on and let me know _

\- - - -

Peter watches as a cherry red Audi Quattro pulls up in front of them.

In the driver's seat is a young man - older than him and Tony - with dark skin and hair, in a high and tight cut, wearing an Air Force emblazoned bomber jacket.

He leans over the passenger's side to pop the door open, but when Tony reaches towards it he jerks it back. He leaves it open just enough to be heard clearly.

"Pyrotechnics in a  _ glove _ ?" he admonishes, "Really Tony? You think you're David Copperfield or something?"

"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Tony quotes.

"Yeah well maybe you should think more about  _ ex-tinguishable _ next time," Rhodey drones as he releases his grip on the door.

"And who's the friend - did you saw your assistant in half?" he nods towards Peter in all his bandages.

"You should see the other half!” Tony quips back. “He's with me. Rhodey, Peter. Peter, Rhodey."

"Hi, I'm Peter Parker," Peter reaches out his hand. Rhodey doesn't break his gaze from Tony.

"I'm gonna charge extra to babysit for two."

"So it's a good thing I'm your sugar daddy," Tony replies with a wink. "Scoot over. I'm driving."

"Like hell you're driving!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was your car?"

"I’m counting three passengers and two seats Tones."

"Hence, the scooting."

"Just where am I scooting to?"

"The back."

"The back? Why don't I send you  _ back _ to the ER?"

“No need to be such a baby about it, I’ll even let you have both window seats.”

“Doesn’t really count if I’m sharing with your mechanical hoarder’s nest! I mean come on man, you even ripped the seat belts out!”

Rhodey gestures to the back seat which is in fact a hot mess of sheet metal, power tools, and fast food wrappers.

“Only because I needed them to make a  _ hovercraft _ .” Tony argues like it’s the most obvious explanation in the world. “Where else was I supposed to get seat belts on short notice? Or are you saying my safety doesn’t matter?”

"Uh guys?" Peter cuts in "I can get in the back."

Tony blinks. "Pete. Look at yourself man." 

"Yeah, you should take it easy Yummy Mummy," Rhodey adds, waving a hand at Peter’s general just-got-out-of-the-hospital-ness, "A seatbelt seems like bare minimum for you."

"It's fine guys, really," Peter says, sliding past Tony and into the back easily. He has to contort his body a bit to fit behind the seats and over the spare parts, but that's nearly become normal posture for him. It’s a breeze compared to stuff like climbing through HVAC vents - which is  _ not  _ as cool as the movies make it seem, by the way.

"You're way too good at that. You actually look comfortable." Rhodey says, eyeing Peter's mobility despite his supposed injuries. He looks at Tony accusingly, "He's way too good at that."

It's not comfortable. But nothing about this entire situation is comfortable.

"He’s Gumby damnit!" Tony says as he swings around the front of his car, shooting a bandaged finger gun at them and putting his good arm on the hood lovingly as he pivots. Peter has no idea what that phrase means, but it earns an eye roll from Rhodey and Tony snickers to himself, so it’s probably a reference to something. 

Peter makes a mental note to Google that later. Which is when he realizes, with nauseating dread, that search engines do not exist in 1987. Not even Bing. 

Tony, ignorant to the existential devastation ruminating in his backseat, opens the driver's side door and smacks Rhodey on the shoulder.

"Come on. I won't ask you to scoot twice," he says.

"You never actually asked," Rhodey grunts, although he is already obliging, reaching the length of his body to grab the passenger door and slide over.

The older man had barely managed to get his leg over the gear shift when Tony puts the car in drive and tears out of the hospital parking lot.

Rhodey mutters something about "reckless behavior" and "didn't learn your lesson" as he slouches in his seat. Tony smiles as he weaves through traffic and turns on the radio to a rock station playing songs Peter doesn’t recognize.

"So, Pete. What's your deal?" Rhodey asks.

Peter sucks in a breath. "...I'm not really sure how to answer that," he glances at Tony, then looks down at his hands, squeezing the backpack.

"So that's the introduction everyone gets? I was hoping to hear a fun fact or two," Tony sighs.

"You don't actually know him?!?" Rhodey gawks at his friend in realization.

"Our princess is under a bit of a memory deficiency spell," Tony says helpfully, giving Rhodey a quick look away from the road that says 'don’t push me on this right now.' 

Rhodey returns with his own look of 'what the fuck do you mean we're taking an amnesiac away from a medical facility?'

"He's fine! You should have seen how fast he high-tailed it out of the hospital."

"Well that explains why you like him, you have so much in common," Rhodey turns back to Peter. "What's the last thing you remember?" he asks with far less gentleness than any of the doctors or nurses.

"Eehhh..." Peter whines, scratching his head. "You ever lose your phone, and someone asks you where you last left it? And you can only remember a time before that, and the rest is hard to figure out because it's more like a bunch of possible places it  _ could _ have been?"

Rhodey squints at him like he just spoke Shyriiwook.

"You  _ lost _ a phone? How?" Tony laughs.

"Keys. I meant to say keys." Peter corrects.

"Okay... so where's the last place you had your keys, metaphorically speaking?" Rhodey asks.

Peter shuts his eyes and for the first time that day, genuinely tries to remember. His memory fades in as just emotions at first, then smells. Danger. Panic. Sweat. Blood. Adrenaline. Worry. Dirt. Ozone. Fear.

If he closes his eyes tightly enough, he sees a black sky, filled with stars like he's never seen before. He feels the echo of a conversation, with someone he knows, familiar but unnameable and distant like when he dreams of his parents.

"I think I was... dreaming. But I wasn't asleep?" Peter says, trying his best to sum up what these flashes mean to him. 

"Oh, so they gave you the good stuff at Cambridge huh? Me too dude," Tony says, earning another eye roll from Rhodey.

"Okay, let's try this then, why were you so eager to not stay in the hospital where they have plenty of  _ therapists _ who could  _ help you remember _ ?"

"Because... I think I have something I need to do?" Peter offers hesitantly. 

"Like what? Did you leave the oven on?"

"Actually, I was… preparing for something."

"Something…?" Tony leaves the blank for Peter to fill in.

Peter closes his eyes tighter for a few seconds, and something in his mind snaps open. 

He remembers the morning of the MOMA field trip. He had been feeling nervous for days. Just slightly off. It was hard to tell the difference between the Spidey senses and the post-traumatic anxiety that came from being a superhero, but he had been feeling off all the same. He had showed up to school early so he could sneak into the chemistry lab and make extra fluid for his web shooters, just to be safe. He remembers getting on the bus, and his hair standing on end.

In the back of Tony Stark's 1980s sports car, Peter lets out a breath he hadn't realized he's been holding.

Rhodey is looking at him expectantly.

"Ok. Um. You guys are going to the MIT campus right?" Peter asks hopefully.

"Unless you've got somewhere else to be?" Tony raises an eyebrow at him through the rearview mirror.

Peter sucks in another breath.

"Do you think I could use the chemistry lab when we get there?"

Rhodey sternly replies "We are not breaking you in to use MIT as a drug lab," at the exact same time that Tony says "Well if you wanted more drugs we could have just pocketed a few pills from the nurse's station."

"Wh-what- who would steal from a hospital? And no, I don't need more-  _ any _ drugs!" Peter stammers. "It's - I'm, uh, maybe it will help me remember, maybe not. But there's this… project I'm working on. Something only I can make. And I need a chemistry setup."

Electricity fires in Tony's eyes, as Rhodey groans and sinks further back into his seat.

\- - - -

They dropped Rhodey off at his dorm first. Tony had asked him if he wanted to tag along, but Rhodey just grumbles something about needing space from insufferable dorks.

Tony somehow has keys - like,  _ physical keys _ , wow - to the chemistry building. Since he doesn't turn the lights on as they walk through the dark hallways, Peter gets the feeling that they aren't really supposed to be here at night.

"Is this ok?" he pauses to ask Tony quietly. He also notes the bags under Tony's eyes, and the fact that it's past midnight, and how they’d both been prodded by nurses and medical techs for the better part of the evening.

"Oh come on princess, you can't just tease me with ominous science talk and then not follow through. I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight." Tony says as he unlocks and swings the door open to a small lab. It's on the interior of the building, with no windows, and apparently that is enough for Tony to feel confident flicking the lights on.

Peter works quickly for the most part, having pulled off the synthesis of his web fluid so many times in class that he could practically do it with his eyes closed. He had once pulled it off entirely while proofreading Ned's SDS pre-lab, and reading his best friend’s handwriting is a challenge of its own. The only thing that trips him up now is the age - or rather, 'time period' - of the equipment. At least chemicals are chemicals no matter what year it is.

The entire time he's working, Tony watches him quietly like a hungry cat. He doesn't even ask Peter what he's doing. And Peter can feel from the energy radiating off of the other teen that he's having a hell of a time just trying to figure it out himself.

The fluid propulsion system would be the trickier part of this, Peter realizes. It's not that he didn't come up with the design with limited tech in the first place, but it simply can't be done with the stock of this general chemistry lab. Instead, he finds a compressed CO 2 canister just smaller than his fist, cuts the outside of a pen in half for a nozzle, and pokes some holes in a bottle cap wound with a rubber band in place of the spinnerette turbines. He uses some zip ties to fashion the clunky 'retro' web shooters to one of his black wrist bands.

He positions the shooter so it is tight on his wrist and takes a step back from the workstation. He looks around the room for something to safely test on. He eyes a can of Tab sitting on a desk at the front of the room. 

“Okay,” he says to himself.

He briefly considers whether the formula is even worth testing in these conditions. The substantially lower than average pressure will mess with the elasticity of the webs, so he’ll have to quickly yank back on the webbing as soon as it makes contact with the soda can. Regardless of tensile strength it would be messy, more like melted chewing gum than spider silk. But as Tony’s vigilant supervision reminds him, he might as well make it worth the other teen’s time.

He breathes in and out, lines up his shot, fires, and pulls.

The formula holds together far better than he expects, forming into sturdy tendrils as it rockets through the air.

Only problem, the dodgy shooter didn't fire at the angle he anticipated, so the webs land on the entire desk instead, which Peter reflexively pulls fifteen feet across the room without meaning too, colliding with other desks which nearly come to crush him and Tony. Among other items, the can of Tab falls to the floor and starts spraying diet cola everywhere.

"Oh, shit!" Peter swears as he releases the webbing and turns to make sure Tony is okay.

The brunet is staring back at him with pupils blown like eclipses. He is breathing quickly, back up against a desk, and smiling despite how disheveled he is. Peter can hear his heartbeat racing.

"Wow," is all Tony says. The first thing he has said since they entered the lab.

Quite frankly, Peter thinks Tony Stark looks horny right now. Or crazy. He's not sure which.

\- - - -

By the time they finish cleaning up the lab, Peter has apologized about 100 times, and Tony looks quite drained.

"That's enough excitement for today Doc. I'm going to bed," he says.

"I'm sorry," Peter responds like a broken record.

"Enough.” Tony raises a shushing finger behind him and he fishes the keys back out of his pocket. "You really want to make it up to me, you can shut up now and answer my questions in the morning."

Peter thinks that he probably won't have answers to all of Tony's questions. He also desperately wants to question where Tony is going, and where he expects him to sleep tonight. But Peter is tired too, and so he says none of this.

The two of them creep silently back across campus, into the dorms, and up to Tony's room.

It's much larger than Peter's bedroom back in Queens, and larger than he would have expected a single dorm room to be, which means it's probably a double. On the opposite wall there are two built-in desks and bookshelves, but there is only one twin bed in the room; instead, there's a well-loved couch on the opposite wall.

"Phew. I was worried you'd have a roommate." Peter whispers.

"I got special accommodations," replies Tony at a normal volume, indicating that they are either in no danger of waking up his neighbors or he just doesn’t care.

"Because you're rich?"

"Because  _ I'm a minor. _ " Tony narrows his eyes. Peter blushes.

"Oh yeah, sorry." 

Tony Stark. Boy genius. Right; he totally knew this.

"And how old are you supposed to be again,  _ Mr. Parker _ , was it?" Tony sneers.

"I'm 17. I turn 18 in August. But my name really is Peter Parker," he admits.

Tony hums in apparent satisfaction at Peter's honestly. He turns away to rummage through a wardrobe, and comes out with two bundles of clothes. 

He shoves one of the bundles into Peter's chest. His arms curl up to catch them, and Tony slips away into the en-suite bathroom, shutting the door behind him. 

Even with Tony only separated from him by a few feet, this is the most 'alone' that Peter has felt since he woke up. At the hospital, it felt like he was being constantly watched under the fluorescent lights. But here, in a quiet dorm room lit only by the campus lights outside and the bathroom light seeping under the doorway, Peter could be the only person in the world.

He's certainly the only person in the world from 2018. But wait, does he even know that for sure?

His brief moment of quiet serenity is quickly ruined as his brain starts screaming with more logistical questions about his current situation:  _ How? Why? When? What? Who? Where? _

It isn't until he hears Tony spit out his toothpaste and turn on the faucet that Peter realizes he's supposed to be changing into PJs right now.

Thanks to his late start, Tony exits the bathroom at the exact moment that Peter is stepping into the provided sweatpants, otherwise dressed only in his boxer-briefs and bandages. The light from the bathroom shines like headlights on Peter's awkward position.

Tony's eyes go wide and his heartbeat picks up slightly. He nearly drops the bundle of dirty clothes in his own arms before tossing them at a hamper beside him. 

This is exactly why Peter had always been so careful when changing into gym clothes or going swimming. He's not the type you'd expect to have the body of a superhero. Because he's not supposed to be seen as a superhero at all. And also because he's a nerd by birthright.

Tony politely casts his gaze down after a few more heartbeats and flicks the light off.

"Alright Schwarzenegger," he says cooly, even though Peter can read past him. "Couch or bed?"

"Oh, uh. Couch! Definitely couch," Peter says as he finishes pulling the MIT sweatshirt over his head. He's surprised that Tony would even offer to give up his own bed.

Tony crosses over to the bed and pulls off an extra blanket and pillow, tossing them at him before collapsing on his own bed. Exhaustion rolls off of him in waves.

"Goodnight princess," Tony says. "Please dream of better answers to my questions."

In the time it takes for Peter to walk across the room and lay down on the couch, Tony's breathing and heart rate have already changed to the telltale signs of sleep.

Peter stares up at the ceiling, and tries not to think of Aunt May and Ned and everyone else he loves back in New York. He falls asleep with tears in his eyes, wondering if they are ok.

\- - - -

Peter dreams of fighting the Vulture. Only this time, when the building collapses on him, he is surrounded by his friends and family. They stare down at him from the cracks in the foundation. Aunt May, MJ, glimmers of his parents, Uncle Ben, Ned. This time, he can't hold the building up. He hears his bones and joints fail him in audible pops and cracks. And as he sinks into the ground, he watches everyone he loves turn to dust and scatter in the wind. 

As far as bad dreams go, this is standard fare for Peter. When waking up from a nightmare like this, even his own bedroom seems unfamiliar. There is an adrenaline-fueled half minute each time Peter has to process that he is safe, he hasn't lost anyone, and he is home in his bed.

Except that last part isn't true today. Two out of three, assuming everyone is okay back in 2018.

He also notices upon waking up that there is a sticky note directly on his forehead.

_ Got morning class. Didn't want to wake the sleeping princess. Don't get hit by any more cars while I'm gone. _

_ \- T _

Peter doesn't get out of bed, and he hardly even moves to read the note. He's not really sore from his injuries at this point - physically, the only thing he feels is a bit hungry. But emotionally, and mentally, he could not be more exhausted.

He tries his hardest to remember something, anything, about how he got here. But unlike his lost phone analogy, there's no vague idea, not even a theory, of how he managed to travel through time and space yesterday. 

First of all, he didn't even know it was possible. Sure, he now lives in a world where magic and aliens are a thing, but it would have probably come up in physics class if manipulating time was a factor to be considered.

As for his own memory, he pushes through the events of the MOMA field trip like walking through water or deep snow in a blizzard. The memories of Flash's dumb jokes about seeing a penis in every art piece, MJ's brutally woke commentary, and sharing lunches with Ned - they all are in his head, but hazy. Suggestions of how the day might have gone differently are indistinguishable from imagination or fact.

The only clear constant is the tingle. The spidey-sense. It was eating at him that day, and the nervousness is present in every single memory.

But when he thinks past leaving the museum, it's like his brain shuts off, walking through snow then hitting the edge of the video game map. Maybe he was knocked out before he was taken, but that is the  _ exact _ kind of thing his preemptive reflexes would tell him, even if he didn't get enough time to dodge it.

What's more, if he had passed out, it would feel like a jump-cut in his memory. Like missing footage. A skip. But Peter didn't just wake up in the hospital after getting on the bus. It's more like the information has been wiped clean. Left intentionally blank. But the longer he thinks about it, the more it turns to static in his mind.

After what must have been an hour of trying to focus on all of this, between closing his eyes and staring at the ceiling, Peter remembers what he had only briefly seen at the bottom of his backpack. He rummages through and pulls out...

Yup. That's a Spider-Man mask.

Or rather, it's a Spider-patterned ski mask, with added goggles. It’s similar to his old home-made mask, but only in terms of technology involved. In appearance, it is more like a lazy imitation of the one π̇̍͗͡r̶̗͔̍͂͑ͪͯ̌ͬ ̾ͧ͂$ͯ͂͛̓ͨ+̼͓̬̮͇̻̩@̹̰̩̗̼͋̍͐̉̚√ͪ̉k̞͕̞͚̙ͭ made for him.

_ Wait. What? _

_ Who the heck is π̝̰̟̽̈̚r̈́ͫͥ̈́͛̽̅͝ ̷̗̣̫͚̲$̤̞ͫ̎ͯ͒+̶͖̲̫̘͍ͅ@̗̖̪̮͍̠͞√͖̦̪̤̂k͓̣̫̳̭͕ͫ͡?? _

Dwelling on that thought makes Peter's vision go hyper-saturated. The colors bleed and drag on the trace shadows of objects when he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. His ears ring. 

His mind retracts from these thoughts like an electric shock, and he focuses on looking at his hands, and the sound of his own breathing. 

The further he pushes these memories to the back of his mind, the more they start to feel like something awful that he dreamt. He smells smoke that isn't really there, and his brain tells him that his lungs are filling with it.

_ Focus. Breathe. In. Out. _

And like smoke, whatever thought had started this is completely gone. But the feeling of dread remains.

Already on-edge, his ‘tingle’ tells him the door is about to open 5 seconds before he even hears the footsteps. He jumps about 2 feet, sticks to the wall, realizes what he's doing, lands, shoves his mask back in his bag, folds the blanket, runs a hand through his hair, and tries to look normal.

"Look at that, you didn't murder me in my sleep after all. Aren't you proud of yourself?" Tony asks as he re-enters his room with a backpack slung over his shoulder.

If Tony is trying not to react to how stiffly Peter is sitting, he notices it anyway. But it's also possible that Tony always looks this inquisitive.

Today he's dressed in acid wash jeans and a graphic tee hidden under a leather jacket. Peter looks at him with awe, processing the fact that he's in 1987 and in Tony Stark's dorm room all over again. 

"I said rob for drug money, not murder!" Peter blurts out belatedly, which makes Tony snort as he takes a seat across from him on the bed.

"...and, uh, thanks for letting me stay here," Peter adds.

"Hey," says Tony "don't forget the arrangement we made for your room and board. I've got questions."

At this moment, Peter realizes he probably should not have stayed with Tony. He should have left this morning when Tony was gone. He even feels the urge to bolt right now; it's not like Tony could stop him.

Instead, he responds with a quiet "Okay."

Deep down, as he tugs at the hem of the borrowed sweatshirt he's wearing, Peter understands that he wouldn't have anywhere to go anyway. 

"I'll start with this," Tony says as he pulls out a vial of web fluid. "What the fuck is this?"

"Oh! It's a fluid that generates a hierarchically arranged chain of carbon nanotube fibrils by-"

"You know that's not what I'm asking," Tony clips. Genius that he is, he could have figured all of that out by himself. Especially since he watched Peter make it.

"It's... something I invented," Peter offers.

"I invent things every week. Hell, this is MIT. We're neck deep in inventions pal. But this? Where did you come up with this?"

"Um, Queens?"

"New York, huh?" Tony's serious gaze wavers slightly back into curiosity. "So what about life in Gotham inspired you to make a high-tensile-strength adhesive polyfiber? You fighting the Joker or something?"

It was clearly a joke, but Tony had just about hit the nail on the head. "Uhhhh… well, yeah it's for eh, safety I guess?"

"Safety from what?"

"From a lot of things. For the people I need to protect."

"Protect? Are you saying it's a weapon?"

"No!"

"Can you please be more specific? You're not making this any less sketchy, dude," Tony says, running a hand over his face.

"I-I can't really say. But I promise I'm not a criminal! I-"

"That much is obvious," Tony sighs. "You even sharpened all the pencils when we were cleaning up the lab for Christ's sake. I just need to know what's going on here."

Peter has known Tony for less than 24 hours, but he feels compelled to tell him everything, like when he's with MJ, or Ned before he found out. And yet he thinks the impact of the full truth right now would do a lot worse than making Ned drop his Lego Death Star.

"Look… something happened to me. I'm still figuring out what it was. But I think it means my friends are in trouble, and I don't know who to trust or what to do, but I just need some time to figure it out. Because whatever happens, if I  _ can _ do anything about it, it's going to be my fault if I don't do  _ something _ . And I know that's not the answer you're looking for, and you can go ahead and kick me out now, but that's really all I can say,” Peter huffs. “I'm not trying to cause you any more trouble, but trouble just…kinda comes with me these days."

As he says all of this, Tony locks eyes with Peter, searching, digging into his soul and running calculations on it all at once. When he finishes talking, Tony stays quiet for a few seconds, gaze unmoving, and takes a deep breath.

"Do you want to go get some breakfast?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you it would get confusing! You can skip this end note if you would like to remain as confused as Peter about how all of this works, which isn't really a spoiler since you as the audience know what happened for the most part already.  
Basically, Thanos has just acquired 5 of the 6 stones - Power, Space, Reality, Soul, and Time. The mind stone would have made this much easier to write, but alas, poor baby Vision was still kicking at the time. So here is how Thanos uses all five of them in some experimental Big Boy Magic:  
1\. Power - admittedly the most half-assed use, this one is like the battery that allows the others to work together at this scale  
2\. Time - pretty self-explanatory, sends Peter back 31 years to the day. Can't really say if it's the same time of day, what with the fact that Titan and Earth have different solar cycles. Thanos intentionally chose a time that Peter would be the same age as Tony, because he's a nasty awful man who wanted to maximize their suffering, but also because he has a complex about children (he probably would have tried to 'adopt' Peter if he had invaded earth at a different time) that makes him take pity on them and not see them as threats. Wonder if it's gonna turn out like he planned though...  
3\. Space - who else can say they've traveled from an unknown distant planet to Boston in less than a second? Also, time travel inherently requires space travel but don't get me started on that.  
4\. Reality - Thanos has obviously not been to 1980s earth, so the reality is shifted to blend Peter's integral understanding of himself into the world of 1987. This explains things like how Peter has a mask and clothes like the original Spidey scheme, even though Thanos only saw the Iron Spider suit. If Peter wasn't so well-established as a fan of retro movies in canon, he would have had an even more ridiculously stereotypical 80s look, because it's all from his mind.  
5\. Soul - the MCU never gets into how the soul stone can be used, so I am deciding that it has the ability to manipulate connections between souls. Meaning, it can control relationships, but in this case, Thanos used the stone to entirely delete Peter and Tony's relationship, as well as Peter's relationship with Thanos. So spoiler, Peter didn't so much "forget" Tony as his brain is retroactively adjusting to a new reality in which he and Tony never met. It eliminates all memories of things that the two of them were personally connected by, meaning that Peter can be aware of the existence of both Iron Man and Tony Stark but not that Peter knew Tony as a fellow superhero. Tony does the whole secret identity thing in the comics so I'm going with that 'Iron Man is a bodyguard' stuff for now, in terms of what Peter believes.  
That's all 5! A bit ripe for plot holes, but this is Marvel, so I'm just being true to my source material.  
Can't wait to hear what you think about all this!!!!


	3. The Safety Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: referenced reckless self-endangerment and accidental injury

_ Ah we can go when we want to the night is young and so am I _

_ And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet _

_ And surprise 'em with the victory cry _

_ I say we can act if want to if we don't nobody will _

_ And you can act real rude and totally removed _

_ And I can act like an imbecile _

\- - - -

The next two days fall into step weirdly easily for Peter. Tony takes him to meals, chats with him about whatever is on his mind, and Rhodey joins for dinner. Peter can tell that Rhodey is still highly suspicious of him, but his vital signs don't respond to Peter like he's a threat. Which means Tony has either been covering for him, or just hasn't told Rhodey anything about the web fluid fiasco or how he’s bizarrely jacked for a teenager. 

While Tony's in classes he gives Peter directions to the library and computer lab. Luckily for Peter, he has his experience with putting together old computers, so none of the technology is a problem for him. However, he was drastically incorrect about whether the internet was readily available yet in 1987, which resulted in a very weird conversation with the poor computer technician.

In between research, he really enjoys talking with Tony - it goes without saying that he is a genius, even as a teenager in the 1980's. As Peter puzzles over theories, he will occasionally wonder aloud in the dorm room or complain about an equation at lunch. He tries to keep things as vague as possible, but Tony will offer whatever help he can, including solving said lunch equation before his fries even got cold. 

It's clear that Tony is trying to get more information out of him by helping him. If Peter wasn't so determined to keep Tony safely out of all this mess, a Stark would make for a really good Guy In The Chair™.

As nice as it all is, Peter is no closer to getting any answers about his situation. In a world where Asgardians and Sorcerers haven't made public appearances yet, things like time travel are purely spoken of in a theoretical and rudimentary sense, if not a fictional one. The memory loss is another thing entirely - he has poured over several medical textbooks on the subject but he has a feeling that whatever is causing this isn't natural. Or at least not as natural as a hit on the head. 

He spends as much time trying to remember things as he can without triggering those migraine-panic-whatever attacks. Not only are they awful, they are counter-productive: the harder he focuses on the thoughts that trigger them, the more they disappear, like blindly reaching under the bed for something only to push it further out of reach.

He can remember the Avengers, and figures that that's related to what's happening. First of all, traveling 30 years back in time seems like an Avengers-level concern, and secondly, thinking too hard about them triggers similar reactions to thinking about where he got his advanced suit. So he’s not able to figure out what his involvement was with the super-team, but he doesn't think any force in the world could make him forget if he actually _ was _an Avenger. 

He tries to think if there are any of them that he could ask for help right now, but he can’t even come up with someone who he could easily _ find _ . He knows that Captain America is somewhere in the Arctic and won't be woken up for another couple decades. He doesn't even know _ who _ Iron Man is. Thor is… wherever Asgardians hang out. And people like Bruce Banner or Hawkeye would all be teenagers or children right now, totally oblivious to the idea of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Younger members like Scarlet Witch probably haven’t even been born yet.

SHIELD definitely exists, but he should have been paying more attention to the news when they were revealing who turned out to be a Hydra agent. If he reached out to somebody right now, he could be putting dangerously valuable information into the hands of super-fascists, which could result in _ a lot _ of things in the future that he doesn't want to think about. The best lead he can think of is honestly Howard Stark, but when he mentions Tony's dad to him he quickly picks up two things: that Tony has no idea the kind of power SHIELD operates, and that he does _ not _ like to talk about his dad.

So for now, he has to take what he can get, and stick with this young and clueless Tony Stark. It can’t be helped. 

Or at least that’s what he tells himself as Tony smirks and steals another one of his fries.

\- - - -

On Friday night after 1 AM, Tony shoves a baseball hat and sunglasses on Peter's head, and does the same for himself, ushering them out the side door of the dormitory.

"Alright princess, do you believe in miracles? Because you’re about to see where I do my magic," he says with a distinct glimmer in his eye. 

"What does that mean?" Peter asks, suddenly wondering if he had forgotten that Tony Stark was a Sorcerer Supreme in 2018.

"We're going to the engineering workshop," Tony deadpans. "I mean, isn't that your_ major _ after all?"

"Oh, yeah, cool!" Peter pipes up as he realizes this will finally give him the chance to finish his Spidey gear. All he really needs is to finish the ‘shooting’ part of the web shooters, and add some sensory dampening to the goggles to help him focus. He has been mulling over a taser-web modification too, if they have the time.

“I thought you might be excited,” Tony says with a cocky smile in his voice.

"But… isn't it your major too? I mean, actually? Why does it feel like we're sneaking?" In fact, Peter can faintly hear Tony's heart rate pick up the further they walk, in a way that’s different from their visit to the chemistry lab two nights ago.

"Great deduction, Watson. It's because we _ are _ sneaking," Tony replies matter-of-factly, tugging his baggy neon color-blocked windbreaker higher around his neck. "Let's just say that what happened to my arm this week was not my first ‘incident.’” 

Peter can only dread what those air quotes are referring to. Tony’s face is unreadable behind a large pair of aviators. 

“And I may or may not have been a little bit temporarily_ banned _ from unsupervised access to the workshop."

It's a short walk down the waterfront from Baker House before they turn the corner into the math and engineering quad. Peter had never seen much of MIT back in the present, so he had been surprised that the buildings known for birthing the technology of the future were encased in old-school white marble and roman columns, surrounded by posh New England landscaping of evenly spaced trees and hedges. They have gotten close enough that Peter can now read the engraved bronze sign marking the engineering building, when the tingle zaps a warning across his senses like a static shock. 

_ Hide. _

In the span of a breath, Peter grabs Tony around the waist and tucks him into his chest as he darts behind a pillar. A second later, a security guard walks into view, pacing outside the entrance of the mechanical engineering department.

Tony squirms in his grasp, craning his neck over his shoulder to follow Peter's gaze.

"…And we might also assume, hypothetically, that this may not be my _ first time _ being banned," Tony whispers. "Or my first time trying to sneak in anyway. Countermeasures may have been taken."

When Tony chuckles awkwardly, Peter feels the breath on his neck. 

Peter had barely gotten onto high-five terms with Tony over the past 48 hours, and this makes him all the more aware of how he now has basically pressed his entire body against Tony and the marble column. He can feel the vibrations of nervousness run through him, and he’s not sure who they belong to.

"Would you mind easing up a bit there Betty?" Tony squeaks. "As much as I appreciate the bodyguard detail, I got this one covered."

Peter breaths out a hushed "sorry" and jolts back from the brunet, leaving a straightened arm on the pillar to stay close while giving Tony a little breathing space. 

Tony glances at the security guard and then back to Peter with a smile creeping on his face. He reaches down and unzips his fanny pack - yeah, seeing those unironically took some getting used to - and pulls out a device that Peter figures is some kind of radio transmitter by the look of it. And sure, it's a bit retro, but it's remarkably small and sleek compared to what he knows the current tech standards are.

“I came prepared, princess. Countermeasures for countermeasures.”

Tony flips a switch and starts fiddling with the knobs. Peter at first thinks it's obvious what he's trying to do, but that's when Tony holds up the device and he sees the frequency marker moving on its own, sliding back and forth and zeroing in on its target.

Leave it to Tony to make his own automatic frequency scanner and channel decoder, just so he wouldn't have to tune the thing himself. 

It's very clear when his device finds the intended signal, because the walkie-talkie holstered on the guard's hip crackles to life with a shrieking feedback noise. 

It's the kind of sound that's enough to give anyone an immediate headache. The startled guard fumbles with his device, pressing buttons, yelling into it for someone on the other end, and even tries smacking it against one of the columns. With a growl of frustration and some colorful phrases involving "techie bullshit," the man storms off to his golf cart, seemingly heading back to chew out whoever is in charge of security guard tech support.

Tony watches this scene unfold with unfiltered glee. He turns smugly back to Peter, who would have seen all of this as well, were he not completely recoiled with his hands over his ears.

Even though the security guard was about a hundred feet away from them, it's more than enough to overwhelm Peter's sensitive hearing. To him, the pitch is like two needles driven into his eardrums, and the ringing in his head brings back unpleasant memories of the aftermath of explosions.

_ Breathe. _

_ You can’t be so useless when things get bad. _

_ Breathe. _

The sound fades out as the golf cart drives away, and when Peter comes back to himself he's once again up close and personal with Tony, who is gripping him tightly by the shoulders.

"-you with me Pete?" he hears him say, concern etched on his face.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good," Peter says, shaking his head and blinking a few times. "That was so cool, what you did with the automatic scanner!" 

Peter throws out a reassuring smile. It doesn’t change the look in the other teen’s eyes, but the grip on his shoulders loosens.

"Hey Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"No offense, but you are so fucking weird."

  
  


\- - - -

Following Tony’s lead through the hallways makes Peter a bit nervous. His Spidey-senses are alert to the possibility of getting caught, even though he knows it’s not a dangerous situation persay. Without his suit, his peripheral senses are just about overwhelming him, and he sees every fly buzzing in the corner, hears every radiator in the classrooms and offices, can almost _ feel _the wind rustling the trees outside. 

But Tony was right when he said he came prepared. His fanny pack contains a lot more than just a walkie-talkie buster, including crudely copied keys and an EMP jammer gun, which he fires at a few CCTV cameras for just long enough for him and Peter to run past. It’s smart, Peter thinks, when he could just shut down the cameras completely, it’s more efficient and less likely to raise suspicion at the campus security office if the monitors only go out for a few seconds.

The inner offices of the engineering department are striking. Everything about MIT exudes prestige, either in the old roman-esqe architecture or modernist sleek minimalism, large rooms with vaulted ceilings, doused in old book smell, and everywhere you turn is some inspirational quote carved on a monument. But these workspaces are small, cramped, and as cluttered as Peter’s room back at home. 

There are lab spaces and workshops that appear to be kept somewhat clean for classes, but they soon reach a section that is marked for ‘upperclassman research’ and each station has its own unique flair of mess. 

Before Tony has the chance to say “Welcome to the Batcave Brucey,” Peter can already tell which station is his. It’s covered in sticky notes that say_ DON’T TOUCH _on various interesting projects covering every surface. The menagerie includes engines, robotics, two personal computers, communication devices, projectiles, wearables, circuit boards, and more. It’s a lot to take in, and the excitement is enough to finally push aside the cautionary tingles and send Peter right into obsessive curiosity. 

Respectfully, Peter holds himself back from the urge to ignore the labels and put his hands on all of it. It takes all of the strength in his superhuman body to do so. 

Eyes wide and jaw clenched, he looks over at Tony and exhales what was supposed to be a casual “hm,” but comes out six octaves too high.

Tony is looking back at Peter with amusement. While he was taking everything in, Tony had hopped up to sit on a rare open patch of desk, leaning up against a wire shelf full of parts. He looks more relaxed than Peter has ever seen him, even when you count the time he was on morphine.

“Alright. Go nuts, princess,” Tony says, before quickly adding, “but don’t break my stuff!”

“Ohmygodthankyouthisissocool!”

Peter dives in with fervor, closely examining anything and everything he can force himself to focus on for more than 2 seconds. The state of Tony’s projects is surreal, almost like steam-punk: reflections of lofty futuristic ideas limited only by the technology of their time. 

He is currently messing with a projector connected with some clear acrylic that seems to be an attempt at a semi-transparent display, perhaps a HUD or just a 2D hologram. It displays a blurry and pixelated ‘Hello World’ screen. It’s a shame Peter can’t recall more about what goes into graphics chips, because he knows from his dumpster diving that they can’t be more than a couple of years off from getting way more advanced visuals, which would make this display even cooler. Ned would probably know how to make something better, if only he were here.

He shakes off that depressing thought by grabbing a welding helmet which had the eye guard section punched out to place in a VPL EyePhone headset. _ Weren’t those things like, extremely expensive? _ Plugged into it was a cable leading to a camera that was something between a Kodak Electro-Optic and a Hawkeye II. The camera wasn’t mounted to anything, but Peter suspects that he’s on the right track thinking Tony is interested in a heads-up display.

He takes off the clunky headgear and is just about to dig into some blueprints on his left when Tony snaps his fingers by his ear. 

“Ok Edison, enough snooping through my IP. You wanted to come here even before I asked, right?” Peter looks quizzically to the brunet. He had hardly noticed that this whole time Tony had been tinkering with something on his own, and now appears to be snapping in a vacu-formed plastic cover onto something roughly the size of his forearm.

“Yeah, I figured. Why don’t you try this on for size?” Tony holds out the contraption, now apparent as a short wrist-gauntlet device with an angled switch sticking out of the front. It’s a bit large, but lightweight considering, and it looks almost like it could be a retro take on Peter’s own-

_ No. It can’t be, can it? _

“I already saw what you were trying to do with the CO2 propulsion, figured it could use a proper setup. You just needed some PVC to make a pressure chamber and then a solenoid valve as a release mechanism, all I had to do was add a small amber-sapphire turbine to increase the pressurization. Well, that’s all I _ had _to do anyway.” Tony explains with barely contained pride. 

“First of all, I modified your palm trigger switch to launch only on a double-tap, to prevent misfires. I extended the nozzle to give you a bit more accuracy, and into that nozzle I added a catch hook to draw the hardened strands into a retrieval spool. That retrieval should allow you to refill and then re-pressurize the strands back into fluid in a secondary attached vial, so you won’t run out. I slapped a hard outer casing to the whole shebang so you won't be getting your sweater stuck in the gears, and presto!”

In stunned silence, Peter holds the web shooter like it’s made of glass and sprinkled with unicorn tears. He looks up at Tony, then back at the shooter, then back to Tony, the shooter, Tony, shooter, T-

“If I just wanted you to look at it I would have stopped after drawing the blueprints and saved all this trouble,” Tony murmurs with annoyance. He grabs Peter’s left wrist, pulls up his sleeve and straps the shooter to his arm. The brush of his skin leaves behind a warm feeling.

He walks a few paces down the room and wheels out a chalkboard, on which he has drawn a simple target, and in the center a fresh can of Tab is shoddily taped to the bullseye. He walks back to stand just behind the other teen and eyes how they're lined up with the board. Still pliant with shock, Tony positions Peter’s middle and ring fingers over the palm trigger, and slaps his arm for him to hold it up properly.

Peter shivers as Tony leans over his right shoulder, his mouth inches away from his ear. 

“Fire at will Petey.”

His muscle memory takes care of what happens next, all in the span of about two seconds. He double taps the switch. The webs _ thwip _ a perfect landing on their target, and he tugs to send the can flying back into his waiting hand. Tiny engines whirr to life as the retrieval mechanism activates, drawing the expelled webs back from whence they came.

Tony reaches around to steal the soda from his grasp. Like a live performance of a commercial, he cracks into it and takes a drink with an exaggerated "Ahh," followed by a sing-song recitation from the brand jingle:

"It's a beautiful thing."

  
  


\- - - -

Peter is aware that he somewhat ruins the moment when he tells Tony that he has some slight modifications to the shooter design, and that he also needs two of them.

“Damn, you’re lucky I like you, princess,” Tony gripes. Still, when Peter shows him his ideas, those brown eyes light up with energy yet again. From what Peter can tell, Tony is not bested in mechanical design very often. Maybe that excites him.

“How did you even have the time to do all of this?” Peter asks while setting up the vacu-former for the new casing dimensions.

“I said I was banned from_ unsupervised _ workshop access. I could do anything I wanted as long as the professors could believe it was part of my capstone,” Tony replies while tightening a new spinnerette bearing. “Might as well occupy myself, since _ that project _ can’t be helped anymore.”

“What’s your capstone project?”

Tony smiles at the question, but it’s a tired, sour smile. The kind of smile Uncle Ben gave a six-year-old Peter when he took apart the DVD player to get a part to fix the VCR.

“Why don’t you say hello?” he says, bending down to plug a power strip into the wall.

Peter turns to the sound of deep mechanical whirring behind him. Two massive hydraulic arms, which he didn’t even realize were more than parts, awaken, and move as if to look at him with three-pronged claws. One of them appears to be only partially finished, the other has a blue ribbon taped to a metal plate that is engraved with the letters_ DUM-E _.

Tony approaches the latter and lovingly pats its central hinge.

“Meet DUM-E. I finished this one months ago - won me a robotics competition, if you can believe it. It was supposed to take input from 3-dimensional optic and audio sensors, and respond intelligently to the situational needs. But the optical sensors can only detect basic shapes, and the programming behind the responses only seems ‘intelligent’ at first… I guess all the room I made in that dumb little head went to the sensor data interpretation, and missed out on the response part. Observe.”

Tony turns as if to face off with DUM-E. If the claw could be considered a face anyway.

“DUM-E, sit,” he says, pointing a finger down, and the robot retracts as if to enter a resting position.

“Roll-over,” Tony says, spinning his hand. The arm rotates fluidly.

“Shake.” Tony extends his hand. The robot pauses for a second, then reaches past Tony, grabs a screwdriver, and places it in his open hand. 

Tony unleashes a sigh seemingly from the depths of his soul. “And that’s how you earned your name.”

Tony then turns to the unfinished robot.

“This one is technically the capstone project. I’m trying to improve the logical processing and motor control. It has more pragmatic responses, but it lacks the improvisational flair of its older sibling.” 

He steps over and again extends an arm, on which the newer robot seems to focus, but takes no action towards it.

“Hey, you, buddy,” Tony whistles sharply. “God forbid you take some context clues. Shake!” he commands.

The robot responds by moving quickly back and forth in a hydraulic shimmy of sorts.

Peter can’t contain his snort, which sets off an explosion of laughter, even as Tony shoots him a pained expression.

“What are you gonna name the new one?” Peter asks when his giggles subside.

“Dunno,” Tony shrugs with his back turned, having resumed working. “At this point, I can barely get it to respond to ‘Hey You!’ or ‘You cut that out!’”

“Well, I guess that’s a start,” Peter hums, and pets the robot as Tony had to DUM-E. “Nice to meet you, U.”

This time it’s Tony’s turn to snort gracelessly.

And thus, Peter completely abandons working on the shooters in favor of handing various objects to the two robots to see how they respond. U holds a wrench obediently, then Peter adds an oil-stained rag, then a random tennis ball, until it can’t hold anything more and whirrs in distress. DUM-E, on the other hand, takes each item politely, rotates, and carefully places the gifts into the trash can.

Eventually, Tony grumbles something about needing some of those parts, and Peter goes to dig them back out.

At the bottom of the bin, Peter sees something that makes his breath catch.

“Oh my god.”

Tony swivels around on his work stool and his eyes go wide when he sees what Peter is holding. Though even Peter isn’t entirely sure what he’s looking at. 

It’s made of a lightweight metal, shaped like a human arm, and coated in black carbon singe. Going down the length towards the hand, the metal has peeled back into jagged splinters. The fingers hardly look like fingers, burnt to a brittle crumbling state. Wires hang out of a cavity in the palm, and at the end of those wires dangles a circular object. A repulser cell? He couldn’t tell with so little left of it.

Even more horrifying than the destroyed glove is the contents of the trash can below it. The pile of rags is even more thoroughly burnt, as if set on fire purposefully to cover evidence of what happened. But Peter’s nose can clearly smell traces of blood past the ash.

“Tony, what-” Peter breathes, looking at the mechanic’s bandaged arm with a sickening wave of realization. He didn’t know much about medicine in the 1980’s, but even he should have put together that doctors won’t dish out _ morphine _ for regular scrapes and burns.

“-what happened?” spills over his lips, as he looks into brown eyes for answers deeper than his question.

Tony recoils quickly from the gaze, fixing his attention forcefully on tinkering and assembly. “They can’t all be winners,” is his barely audible reply.

"You were really hurt, though."

Tony scoffs as he starts drilling some parts together "Look who's talking."

"But I… Tony, I don't have anyone. Not right now. I woke up, and I was alone."

This makes Tony go still, hands hovering over the workstation, just for a moment.

Peter takes a step closer.

"But you, you have people. You said Rhodey was the only one who knew you were at the hospital. Did he know how bad it was?"

Tony doesn't have to answer that. Rhodey is crabby, but not a total jerk. He would not have been throwing such light-hearted quips at his younger friend if he had known how stitched together he must be under those bandages.

_ How much pain must he be in, even now? _

"You're really going to lecture me about keeping secrets?" Tony grumbles. “At least I was wearing gloves. Didn’t even break anything,” he adds with a demonstrative wiggle of his fingers. 

If Tony’s anything like Peter, he knows that actually breaking a bone or not is a small loophole in the realm of injuries, and a paper-thin excuse for being okay.

A beat of silence hangs heavily in the room. Tony picks up his screwdriver like a comfort object, and inhales stiffly through his nose. 

"What you were saying, about protecting people? About trouble?" he starts. "I get that too. But in my version, the main thing I have to protect people from, is worrying about me. So I have secret projects too, sometimes, and Rhodey doesn't have to deal with them."

"But-"

"I'm not an idiot - I know when things are dangerous. But this was my own little secret thing and I fucked it up, so it's my problem."

"Is it a weapon?" Peter echoes their earlier conversation.

"That's what people want isn't it?" replies Tony coldly. "For me to be like my dad? To build weapons?" 

"Tony-"

"You know he used to outfit Captain America and the Howling Commandos right? Imagine what a bummer it must be, now that his legacy is just a weak little kid who makes pointless robots."

"But _you're_ not a super soldier!" Peter bristles.

"Oh sure, but that's not the point, is it? Steve Rogers, he was just a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, but he was _ brave _ . He was _ smart _ . He would take a hit and _ get back up _. Self-sufficiency is like, my dad's favorite term." Tony's voice has a forced levelness to it, but he slams a drawer a little too hard.

“So I do my best to make ‘em proud. What-Would-Cap-Do? He holds his own, figures out a way to protect himself. And when that blows up in my face, I get my own ride to the hospital.”

“That’s not what Cap-” Peter starts, and cuts himself off when he realizes now is _ not _the time to let a reference to the future slip out. But Tony has already tensed at the mention. Why was Peter always so terrible at saying important stuff? What would Aunt May say to him?

“Tony, you’ve still got a _ family _. You have friends. People who don’t want you to get hurt and stuff! You… you can’t be strong on your own if you’re too weak to let them in.” 

At that Tony snaps - literally, snaps some part into place - and turns onto Peter, his energy boiling.

"You don't get to tell me how to take care of myself!” he yells. “I don't know you Peter! And you don’t know me! That’s the deal isn’t it?” Tony stands up so quickly that the stool wheels into the metal workbench with an emphatic clang.

“If we keep things mysterious, I can hand over whatever you want with no strings, right?” Tony storms towards Peter, face aflame.“Well, I’m covered in strings man. So you better take what you came for, and get the hell out.”

With that, Tony closes the distance between them by slamming the finished web shooters into Peter’s chest. His entire presence radiates with emotions that have been packed in too long. Moisture is pooling in equal amounts above his brow and in his eyes, and the tension in his muscles, with even the bandaged hand curled into a fist at his side, dares Peter to run. 

Instead, Peter moves on instinct, wrapping his arms tightly around his friend. He’s strong enough that without even trying, the arm Tony had used to press distance between them buckles. Wary of the injury on the other boy’s right side, he cradles the back of his head with his left hand.

The web shooters fall to the floor as the volatile tension in Tony’s body releases. He buries his head into Peter’s shoulder, and Peter keeps holding him when his shoulders shake and he feels tears soak into his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woww it's getting angsty up in here.  
Also, you may have noticed that we now have a tentative total chapter count!! But in exchange, my writing speed has slowed down so don't be surprised if I skip a week in the future.  
BTW I hope y'all appreciate my Tony Stark retractable web shooters concept, because I used to think that was how they worked anyway lol plus retracting the webs would make for clean crime scenes, better for a stealthy Spider-Man ;)


	4. You Spin Me Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon-typical action, gun mention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so excited about this chapter that I'm posting before my editor reads - I'm reckless and disloyal, sorry! (Update - he read it! I fixed a couple typos!)  
I promise this chapter won't make you cry. Let's just say it's a bit of a holiday treat for y'all ;)

_ I got to be your friend now, baby _

_ And I would like to move in just a little bit closer _

_ All I know is that to me _

_ You look like you're lots of fun _

_ Open up your lovin' arms _

_ Watch out, here I come _

\- - - -

On Saturday, Rhodey joins them for breakfast. At 1:15 PM. You could call it brunch.

Tony and Peter had snuck back out of the workshop just before the sun rose, when even the extra security had given up, and they are less than bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for it. 

Ever since he got bit by that spider Peter has actually been surprisingly terrible at operating on a lack of sleep. Most kids his age are experts at it, and he used to be too, but now his body metabolizes everything so quickly that it needs more sleep to counterbalance. So yeah, he definitely falls asleep a bit in the passenger’s seat of the Quattro as Tony drives them to a diner.

Tony, on the other hand, appears to be a true professional at not getting the proper amount of hours in. The guy even keeps a coffee maker in his own dorm room - Peter's not sure if that's up to snuff with the dormitory standards. But regardless Tony manages to look awake, or at least stay on his feet, every morning. However today Peter can feel a different kind of exhaustion from him. Peter wonders when the last time he cried was before last night.

The point is, Peter hopes that Rhodey will ignore how exhausted and late they both are. 

So, according to the basic laws of the universe, he calls it out immediately.

“What have you two been up to?” Rhodey accuses as soon as they sit down in their booth. To be fair, they had probably kept him waiting a while.

“I’m sorry man, we-” Peter starts, an apology flowing from him instinctually.

“Actually, don’t answer that. I can’t have aiding and abetting on my record,” Rhodey cuts him off, pointing to the Air Force logo on his jacket. "I'm enlisting in 2 months so I can't have you Gremlins ruin this for me."

"Maybe this is all part of my plan to get you kicked out so you can't abandon me," Tony lilts as he reaches across the table to steal Rhodey's coffee.

"Oh no, no way I'm missing my chance at freedom," he bites back. He allows the drink theft however, leaning out of the booth to make eye contact with a waitress making her rounds. She diligently swings by and pours out two more cups, and the whole table mutters heartfelt thank yous.

"Speaking of being left behind, what's Little Orphan Annie gonna do this week?"

"Oh don't worry, I bought his ticket yesterday," Tony replies with a nonchalant hand wave.

Rhodey spits out his newly acquired coffee. "You _ what _?"

"Pete, do you have a passport?"

"Uh-" Peter starts, not following this conversation at his current sleep level.

"Don't worry about it, I'll call a guy."

"Tony, no way, you’re not bringing him! We just met this guy and - no offense - he’s kinda looney.”

"Come on Grumpy, Dopey’s been nothing but sweet so far. Who else is going to keep me company on the bunny hill? We’re handicapped!” Tony pulls up his sleeve to brandish his bandages.

"Uh, guys, what's next week?"

Tony looks at him with a smile that Peter has come to understand only means trouble. "Oh Petey, I know you're a freshman and all, but surely you haven't forgotten about spring break?” 

\- - - -

Six cups of coffee, $400 of shopping for gear, one phone call to Tony's “passport guy” (actually a scary old woman who could produce any fake document in less than 12 hour turnaround, Tony explained), and a 17 hour flight later, Peter finds himself checking into a room with Tony and Rhodey at a ski resort in Switzerland.

Peter has to admit, the 80s ski gear… is pretty rad. Thanks to his particular purchase history, he used to get a lot of Amazon ads for this kind of thing, but skiing was way too far out of his and May’s budgets for it to be a hobby. So this is the first time he has ever felt justified about having a ski mask and goggles in his pocket, and it’s nice. Currently, he’s dressed in a black snow suit covered in wild red geometric patterns. And sure, that’s not exactly far out of his comfort zone for color schemes, but perhaps while they were shopping Tony had said something about red being a good color on both of them, so_ sue him _.

Tony sure seems like he’d cover any imaginary legal fees, having tossed around his credit card with abandon on their way here, and showing no signs of slowing down as he leans over the front desk of the lodge, trying to talk and/or spend their way into a last-minute room upgrade. He’s dressed in simple black ski pants, but belted together with a bright gold jacket, striped down the arms and chest with red and white. 

Also, while he's on the subject of things he could never afford, Switzerland is _ amazing _. Peter had always wanted to go to Europe, and Tony had explained that where they currently reside in the Alps is one of the only ski resorts in the world to operate 365 days a year. Everyone they talk to speaks really good English and is super friendly. He's not sure if that attitude's a Swiss thing or a not-from-New-York-or-Boston thing.

So before they have even approached the slopes, Peter's having a great time. It almost made the terrifying experience of Rhodey cornering him in the airport worth it. 

\- - - -

Tony had slipped away to use the bathroom after their flight, and Peter's hands were full with both of their bags. As Tony turned the corner, Rhodey's demeanor went from cheerfully quipping to hardened soldier in an instant, and he backed Peter into the wall by the drinking fountains.

“Alright, you and I need to talk, Coronet Blue.”

Logically, Peter shouldn't find anything about Rhodey intimidating. But something about years of bullying pre-spider-bite had instilled in him an automated response to this kind of thing. He could look rather convincingly meek and frightened when he needed to. And also because the look in Rhodey's eyes promised a degree of 'follow-through' far more than any of middle school's lunch money shakedowns. 

"Listen, I'll give that you seem like a nice guy. Plus Tony is a hell of a lot smarter than anyone I know, and I certainly can't control what he does or who he does it with. I've already tried. So if he trusts you, I'll play along," Rhodey starts, "But doesn't mean I'm falling for any of this. You're sure as hell not an undergrad..."

Peter gulped, and noticed a woman with a toddler at her ankles eyeing them with concern. Peter smiled weakly at them, causing Rhodey to turn and do the same. When they shuffled along back down the hall, Rhodey snapped immediately back to his terrifying visage.

"Maybe Tony thinks he can help you, because he's secretly nicer than he lets on. Whatever crazy baggage you have going on, you better keep Tony out of it. He doesn't have a lot of people looking out for him, but _ I _ will do anything in my power to protect him. Including things that would throw away my enlistment. Understood?"

Peter could only nod in return, followed by a quiet "yes sir," when Rhodey didn't let up.

Rhodey leaned back with a sigh but kept his gaze on Peter, arms crossed contemplatively. At that moment, he shuddered to imagine how Rhodey would have reacted if Tony's injuries the other day had come from external factors or persons. Or if he had even known the full extent of them. 

So against his judgment of what a person usually says when being threatened, Peter squeaked out "Thank you."

"What's that?" Rhodey raised an eyebrow. 

"I-I just mean, I'm glad you're looking out for him, man. Everybody needs a friend like that. But I think especially Tony."

Rhodey's expression changed to something hard to decipher, but undeniably warmer.

"Whatever," he scoffed as he ruffled Peter's hair.

\- - - -

Back at the resort lodge, Peter is surprised when Rhodey offers him some candy when Tony is talking to the receptionist. 

Peter stares him, and Rhodey just shakes the open bag again in his stretched out hand. He turns towards the window with feigned interest, but glances back at the teen out of the corner of his eye.

"Thanks man," Peter accepts hesitantly. Maybe he really was starting to warm up to him. He takes a handful of the dark candies. 

As soon as he pops them in his mouth, he immediately regrets it. On top of an intense black licorice flavor, the candy is coated in a fine layer of salt, which he had assumed was sugar.

When Rhodey doubles over in laughter beside him, Peter realizes he has just been pranked. He probably should have expected that kind of humor from a guy who’s wearing an American flag patterned set of snow gear.

Tony whips around from sweet-talking the receptionist when he hears the commotion behind him. 

"No way dude! He actually ate the stuff? You said you'd wait for me!" He immediately runs over (prompting a baffled “_ Sir _” from the receptionist) and mock-punches his older friend. “That’s it! No room at the inn, you’re sleeping in the manger.”

If this is what it means to be on good terms with Rhodey, Peter will have to take what he can get. 

\- - - -

Tony had not been kidding about needing someone to keep him company on the bunny hill. Almost as soon as they had dropped off their bags in the lobby and been fitted for skis, Rhodey had ditched them for the gondolas leading to the black diamond slopes.

"Friggin jocks. They're all assholes," Tony grumbles as he watches his friend disappear. "Well princess, looks like you're getting a private skiing lesson from yours truly. How's your form?"

Peter's skiing form was non-existent. Sure, he had a supernatural ability to maintain balance and react quickly, but the muscle memory of climbing skyscrapers and swinging from webs did not translate to downhill skiing.

Thankfully Tony was a pretty good coach, aside from the constant mocking. Tony kept a slow pace with him due to his arm, which Peter had asked him about non-stop since he found out what they would be doing for the week. Tony had insisted that he was a good enough skier to know how to keep his weight off his right pole. He said something about “You think the pros use their arms?” but Peter had no idea if that was a joke.

Likewise, Peter had had to explain his own injuries. He managed to force out some excuse about how it had mostly been bruising and scrapes and he was totally fine now. The latter part was true, but he didn't have any believable way to explain that his ribs just have a habit of un-fracturing in a matter of days. (_ They were only hairline fractures. He’s had worse. Way worse. _)

Tony had simply responded with a taut look that was becoming quite familiar to Peter. Frustrated, but not hurt or untrusting - more like he was a puzzle that he just barely couldn't solve.

And speaking of unsolved puzzles, Peter is fully aware that he has more important things to do right now than vacationing in the Swiss Alps. However, as long as he's dealing with time travel, he has more than 30 years to figure all this stuff out. He might as well learn to ski.

"Alright, so your secret identity is probably _ not _ part of the Rat Pack," Tony chides when Peter tries to stop a little too fast and gets a face full of snow.

"Shut up," Peter laughs. Yet another reference completely lost on him, but he knows when he’s being dissed. Tony has outwardly taken a rather cavalier attitude about the mystery of Peter's past. He's not sure where Tony thinks the line is between what he can't remember and what he won't say, but he makes plenty of jokes about both.

Thanks to Tony's skillful instruction - and yes, probably the spidey-powers too - Peter gets the hang of it in about two hours. Soon, the boys are waiting in line for a chair lift to one of the intermediate slopes.

While Tony prattles on about the potential of hover-tech to allow a snowless ski season, Peter's nerves are humming. Not quite a warning of danger, but something eerie is pulling at him.

Behind them a bundled up old man has been watching them intently, just eyes and salt and pepper hair peeking above his scarf. Even though they are in line for a ski lift, he has no skis or board, just snowshoes, and his left pole has a built-in arm bracer and broadened foot which he leans heavily on. He seems particularly fixed on Tony, but looks away whenever Peter actually tries to catch his eye.

_ Tony said he's famous to some people. Maybe this guy is an engineering enthusiast? _

"Uh, ground control to Major Tom?" Tony interrupts, "Did you even hear what I just said? If I didn't know any better I'd think you weren't taking the HoverSki 3000 seriously."

"Sorry," Peter scratches the back of his neck like it might shake off the prickly feeling. "But didn't Stark Industries try hover tech back in like, the 1940s?"

"Well that only failed because the energy required overheated the thrusters. But that's why I'm letting you in on the ground floor Marty," he insists with Christopher Lloyd-esque inflection, "because now we have the arc reactor, and I have this idea to scale it down..."

Peter would otherwise be thrilled to witness the young inventor discussing the bizarre motivations behind one of the most historic improvements in clean energy. However, at that moment he is reminded what the spidey-sense is _ really _for. The difference between the uneasy feeling of being watched and the vibration that shoots down his spine now is like spa music to an alarm clock.

_ Incoming. _

His eyes snap instinctively to a large sign several stories tall, meant to advertise the resort visibly from the mountain highways.

He starts moving before anyone hears the sharp cracks of splintering wood. This gives him enough time to push back protectively against Tony and shout "Look out!" to the rest of the crowd. Most of them scatter away from the noise in confusion, but the old man is slow to move and of course he's standing _ perfectly _in harm's way. Peter doesn't even think as he lunges and tackles the man into a nearby snow bank. 

The sturdy wooden sign post cracks further as it slams into the ground. It falls close enough to spray Petter with a fine layer of snow as it lands. Running some mental physics based on the diameter of the wood, Peter thinks he probably could have caught it if he needed to, but any normal person would have been toast.

He's glad he chose the evasive route, as the group reacts to what they just saw. Resort staff runs over, a startled child begins to cry, and murmurs rise wondering what caused the massive sign to topple so suddenly. Had he instead caught the beam or webbed it up, _ he _ would have been the one with some explaining to do.

He turns to the old man who is clumsily rising back to his feet. "Are you alright sir?" Peter asks, brushing the snow off his shoulders.

The man mumbles something to the affirmative, glancing around in every direction. He turns back to Peter for long enough to offer a "Thanks, son," before slipping away with surprising deftness, shouldering through the gathering crowd.

"Holy hell McFly!" calls Tony, stepping over the fallen post. He looks frazzled but relieved to see his friend in one piece. Peter shares the sentiment. "You just saved these guys quite the lawsuit!" he adds with a congratulatory slap on the back.

"Yeah, I guess," Peter laughs it off nervously. "Just glad I noticed it was starting to sway a little." Of course Peter hadn't been paying attention at all until the sign was already breaking apart, but the only logical explanation would be something to do with the wind pushing it down, if maybe the wood was starting to rot. Or just his tremendous bad luck that makes the universe pelt him with unreasonable hazards on a daily basis.

The lower area of the resort becomes swarmed with people, so their best option is to continue to the higher slopes anyway.

Tony spends less time coaching Peter on the steeper slopes. The incline makes everything faster, which makes it more familiar to diving through the air with his webs. Which also makes it way more _ fun _.

Before long, Tony decides to let Peter "go his own pace." The way he says it implies that he's tired of holding back for the rookie, but they can both sense that Peter has more stamina than Tony and splitting up will give the latter some time to breathe.

On his own now, Peter watches the skiers who are showing off some acrobatic maneuvers. There is one large ramp and a few deep curves in the slope they have gathered on, taking off into grabs and spins and cheering for their friends. He overhears what they shout to one another, and takes note even though he's not sure if the words are the actual names of the tricks or just some kind of 80s ski lingo.

He eyes the jump ramp enviously. It's tempting, but he shouldn't. Not when he just started skiing today.

He compromises by copying some of their tamer tricks. He carves deeply as he turns, pretends to fall just so he can try out a roll, and plays around with nose and tail grabs. It's enough to keep him decently entertained.

That is, until he sees Tony is no longer skiing. And is instead flirting with a short young blonde woman. She's leaning onto her snowboard and Tony is leaning towards her.

Technically, he understands ‘flirting’ is a subjective term. Objectively, Tony is animatedly telling this girl with a melodic Scandinavian accent about the close call with the lodge sign earlier. She is probably just concerned about what happened. Yet everything about the way Tony communicates seems to be either for the purpose of annoying people or hitting on them. And based on how the blonde girl laughs at him with light in her eyes, it's not the former.

Peter doesn't understand why her smile seems to hit him in the chest. Nor does he understand the incredibly strong desire for Tony to look at _ him _ immediately. It's stupid. If he needed Tony's attention, he could just slide over and say something to him.

But he doesn't _ have _ anything to say to him. It's so stupid.

They are standing pretty close to the ramp though.

_ This is really stupid. _Peter thinks as he picks up speed.

He tells himself he should just do a normal jump - see how much air he can get, and focus on landing without any additional theatrics. But he's never done this before, and his weight isn't distributed very evenly as he leaves the ground. Reflexively, he tucks his legs in for a mute grab and lets the momentum rotate him. 

He would say, if anyone ever asked, that the most under-rated thing about radioactive spider powers is the sense of perfect equilibrium. Whether he's climbing up walls, hanging upside down from rafters, or, in this case, flipping off-axis several times through the air, he feels just as he would standing with two feet on the ground. 

So, next thing he knows, the simple jump becomes something that he's pretty sure would be called a Misty 1080. 

He lands and butter switches so he finishes the slope skiing backwards. He looks up the hill to see Tony and the girl are no longer chatting. She looks agog, turned away from Tony. Tony's mouth hangs open and he's pulled back his ski goggles.

Then Tony is the one laughing. Peter isn't close enough to know for sure, but his eyes seem to light up when he meets his gaze. Then they're squeezed shut as his laughter escalates, accompanied by the surprised chuckles of others on the slope. Tony laughs harder and harder, until he squats down clutching his ribs like he's going to burst open.

Stupid. But in a good way.

\- - - -

Having revealed his new talent for freestyle alpine sports, Peter now faces a new problem. Specifically, having his arm nearly pulled out of its socket as Tony yanks him along to go show Rhodey.

"I can't believe spring break would be the key to your secret identity! You gotta do it again for Rhodey - but do that thing where you act like you didn't even expect it. The full Urkel! I can't wait to see his face, oh man Petey-"

When people start to realize Peter can do things most other humans can't, they react in one of two ways: The first reaction, which happens about 98% of the time, is fear. It's not necessarily a mean kind of fear; sometimes it even gets played off as excitement, like how you might react walking into a haunted house or seeing a bear in the wild. It's only natural, and he has learned not to take it personally.

But for the remaining 2%, a rare alternative response is one of pride. An excited, prideful, childlike joy, just absorbing and reflecting the wonder of the supernatural weirdness. It's the same way he felt when he met Iron Man at the 2010 Stark Expo when he was nine. And forgoing all humility, it's _ amazing _ to be on the receiving end of that response. It's both exhilarating and somehow warm and nurturing, like fresh coffee. Usually he only gets a reaction like that from people who are close enough to consider family, like Ned or May or…

...the point is, the way Tony looks at him, ardently jabbering as they board the gondola to the highest slopes, makes him feel a little less homesick.

He so caught up in it that he doesn't even notice that the older man from before is in the same car with them. Late in the day, the traffic is heavier going down than it is going up. So despite there being plenty of seats, it's just Peter, Tony, a Spanish woman immersed in a Walkman spouting synth-heavy techno-pop, and the mystery man. This time, he is decidedly looking out the window rather than at either of the two teens.

The uneasiness returns, but Peter's not sure if the feeling is from his own head or just an empathetic reflection. The man's brow is furrowed, and he's rolling his ski poles in between pressed hands. His focus on the window isn't just a way to ignore them, Peter realizes, it seems like he's looking for something. His right leg bounces slightly, and his left is completely still. 

In a noisy outdoor environment like this even Peter can't hear quiet sounds like a nervous heartbeat, but he doesn't need to.

In fact, he can barely hear anything over the sound of the cable car machinery, Tony's commentary, and the rhythmic music leaking out of the Walkman lady's headphones (which is probably turned up way too loud to be healthy). So he doesn't pick up much else as the car continues toward the middle of the cable line. Pays no attention to the second gondola car approaching theirs on its way down. He'd much rather answer Tony's questions about aerial technique.

"I-it's really not that crazy if you have enough distance from the ground," he blushes, "it's actually way easier to do a backflip, because you can actually see the ground at the end, so you know where to put your feet!"

"So you were just really into gymnastics as a kid, huh?" Tony muses.

"Yeah," Peter replies easily. He has told this lie before, and it's not even a complete lie. Gymnastics were always his favorite event of the Olympics, and for his 10th birthday some of the parents of his class chipped in for a group party for the summer birthday kids at a trampoline place. It was awesome. So he never took any gymnastics classes or whatever, but he was still technically 'into it.'

"And here I was thinking I'd cracked the case on what makes you so weird," Tony sighs. "A prodigy freestyler at the top of his game, training for Calgary, only to be taken out by a rival and dumped on the mean streets of Boston with no memory of your true skiing destiny! Wouldn't that be a great story?"

"Uh, sorry to disappoint?" Peter offers.

"Well, we're still gonna punk the shit out of Rhodey. If I line him up, do you think you could flip _ over _ him?"

Only Tony Stark could convince him to blatantly use his powers for something so dumb. Only Tony could make it feel _ normal. _ Being around him makes everything feel easier and more intense at the same time. Less overwhelming but more interesting. It's a peace that's contradictory to everything about his life at the moment.

But peace makes people lazy. And lazy people are slow. He's about to respond when for the second time that day he's interrupted by a sharp jolt of warning. But he's not tense like he was last time, and the warning is directionless.

He glances around wildly for the source of the threat. He's not as fast as he should have been, in a small space a hundred feet in the air with at least 75% accident-prone occupants. The old man hasn't moved, doesn't seem to have seen anything concerning, and they are far away from any large signs that might topple on them.

He looks at the oncoming gondola car last. Too slow. The instant he sees the gun is the same instant that a finger squeezes down on the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YEAH GONDOLA FIGHT!! HELL YEAH SKI EPISODE!!! Did you seriously think I was going to write something in the 1980s and not serve some 80s ski gear and sports movie vibes? Especially when it's freaking SKI-DER-MAN???  
So many secrets, so many questions, y'all will just have to keep reading hmmmm  
A couple notes about the references I'm making here:  
1\. Salted black licorice is a common European candy. It's more of a Scandanavian thing than a Swiss thing, but I don't know any Swiss prank candy.  
2\. A Misty flip is a front flip with a 180 spin - 540 total degrees of rotation. But Peter doubled it, making it a 1080 by flipping twice and spinning a full rotation. This trick is crazy but achievable, although even the regular Misty hadn't been coined yet in 1987, so by Back to the Future standards you could say this was Peter's "Johnny B Goode" moment.  
I apologize if the many many other references I make get lost on y'all. IDK if you like the challenge of looking it up, but I'll explain whatever you want to ask about in the comments!


	5. 99 Luftballons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon-typical violence involving minors, injuries (but no blood mention)  
((I guess you can just assume most of the warnings involve minors because this is literally about teenage trauma my dudes lol))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here she is! The chapter most anticipated, and so of course the one I'm posting the latest. This chapter was originally longer but I'm breaking it up for the sake of pacing. Shout out to my editor for working on this despite finals, and shout out to everyone in the Tumblr MCU fic readers/writers group chat!

_ 99 Kriegsminister / [99 war ministers] _

_ Streichholz und Benzinkanister / [Matches and petrol cans] _

_ Hielten sich für schlaue Leute / [Thought that they were clever people] _

_ Witterten schon fette Beute / [Already caught wind of great war spoils] _

_ Riefen, „Krieg!“, und wollten Macht / [Shouted: War, and wanted power] _

_ Mann, wer hätte das gedacht? / [Man, who would have thought] _

_ Dass es einmal so weit kommt / [That one day it would come to this] _

\- - - -

When stuff with guns happens, it happens really fast. And sure, Peter’s spider-powers are quick too, but guns are _ fast _. Like really really fast. 

The sound of the bullet firing isn’t as loud as it could have been, muffled within the windows of the other gondola car just before it shatters the glass. It makes a strange popping noise when it pierces the thin metal walls of their own car. These unusual sounds probably make it particularly startling when Peter lunges at the old man for the second time that day. But thankfully, said obstacles slow the projectile by a fraction of a second, enough time to push the mystery man mere inches and keep said bullet from going directly through his skull. Instead, it rips through the thick material of Peter’s snow jacket. It only grazes his forearm, but the hot metal burns like hell with even the slightest contact. 

This moment is immediately followed by a lot of yelling, including Peter’s own voice screaming at everyone to get down. Peter looks back and sees the barrel of the gun lined up for a second shot through the same hole in the glass. Tony drops to the floor obediently, but lunges for the legs of the Spanish woman who is just barely taking off her headphones. A second bullet fires, and all parties dive for the ground. It shatters through one of their own windows, and although Tony grabs the woman by the ankles and pulls, the bullet goes sickeningly in and out through her shoulder before hitting the ground with a metallic clink. She looks at the exit hole in her jacket. Her face twists into a weird expression like she might start to laugh, and she promptly passes out instead. Tony barely catches her on the way down. The Walkman clatters and keeps playing with a tinny echo that's especially amplified for Peter.

“Son of a bitch!” the man shouts with an American accent as all of this happens. He pulls out _ another gun _and returns fire. His scarf falls revealing a square, clean-shaven jaw. He looks more on the side of middle-aged than elderly, now that his entire face is visible.

Peter is moving instinctively to Tony and the injured woman when he hears a sizzling sound, and sees the bullet on the opposite wall has dissolved into some kind of corrosive acid which eats through the floor completely. 

“Peter!” Tony shouts. Peter looks down and realizes the same acid is now eating through the bullet still trapped in his jacket sleeve. Peter yelps, belatedly realizing that the burning of his arm was escalating, not just from the friction of the bullet, but from his own hair and skin melting along with the polyester. He feels a bit brutish as he literally tears off the top half of his snowsuit to get it off. The separated pants sag uselessly around him, but Peter reaches into the pockets with shaking hands.

More bullets fire. Every nerve in Peter’s body tunes to their highest setting, alert now to the mortal danger of the situation, which is the opposite of helpful. His head swarms with gunshots and copper smell and his burning arm and Euro-pop. The cabin fills with freezing air and light from the holes in the walls and floor. It’s hard to think about what he’s supposed to do next. Hard to even breathe.

When he finds what he’s looking for in the snow pants, his eyes snap back to Tony. He’s putting pressure on the woman’s shoulder, but he locks eyes with him for that fraction of a second. A wordless exchange occurs.

Peter snaps the shooters on his wrists. He tugs the mask over his head, but it has nothing to do with his identity at this point. The sensory dampeners are like an oxygen tank when he’s drowning in an ocean of stimuli. 

“Why does this shit _ always _ turn south when I try to go somewhere without Peggy?!?” the man growls to himself as he drops down to reload his pistol. 

“M-Mr. Sousa?” shouts a shell-shocked Tony.

“Hey, Tony, I thought it was you! You’ve gotten so big since I last saw you!” he replies over the chaos. He moves mostly with his right side, dragging the left, and his cover is scarcely better than a prayer thanks to those acid bullets. “But what’s with the _ Mr. Sousa _? I thought I was Uncle Dan!”

Peter doesn’t have time to hear the rest of this exchange. He fires both webs just above the window furthest from the incoming gondola and kicks his legs up. The already cracked glass shatters easily as he kicks through it and flips to the top of the car. A formless curse from Tony is lost on his ears. The mountain air whips and bites, and he regrets that he’s in nothing but socks, long underwear, and mask.

“Hey kid! Wait!” shouts the man - Mr. Sousa - from below.

Everything's adding up in Peter’s mind now, more than just coincidences, even if he has no idea _ why _. “Stay down sir, I think somebody’s trying to kill you!” Peter calls back. But just as he says this, whoever has been fixing their shots on Mr. Sousa seems to notice the masked figure climbing about. Luckily, Peter has much more room to dodge out here and turns to watch a bullet fly past his face.

“Whoa! Not cool!” cries Peter as he shoots several webs all across the windows of the incoming car, now less than 50 feet away. The webs won’t stop bullets, but they will prevent the shooter from lining up a clear shot.

“What the hell?!?” calls Mr. Sousa, accompanied by a whoop of surprise from Tony, “Get down from there you maniac!”

“Please just keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle sir. I got thi-”

A gloved arm punches the webbed window clean out of its frame, falling to the earth below.

“What did I _ JUST _ say?!?” cries Peter. He fires another web onto the protruding limb and yanks hard, causing the shooter to lurch forward and slam into the window frame with a muffled grunt. Now in the light, Peter can see the offender is a masked man with long dark brown hair. He is dressed in all black attire appropriate for the weather, but the fabric has torn where Peter’s webs attached. A glint of chrome shines in the daylight. 

_ Metal? Some kind of armor below his snow gear? Or a prosthetic- _

“Wait! I think I know that arm!” blurts Peter. 

“Are you B-AAAAUGH!” Peter squawks as the assassin tugs back on the web he’s still holding, giving him a taste of his own medicine. Peter topples forward but converts the momentum by webbing with his other arm to the opposite cables. He somersaults to guide his trajectory and lands with a low crouch on the roof of the attacker’s car.

However, this gives the masked man time to fire two more shots between the cars, which are now almost side-by-side. Not good. 

“Hey Vader! On your six!” Peter taunts as he pokes his head upside down and pries off the window behind the shooter. He fires another web at the back of his head, but thanks to his own announcement the guy easily spins out of the way and turns the gun back on him. 

“Okay, that one’s on me,” Peter chastises himself as he dodges return fire, “No more quipping before thwip-ing!” He flips easily onto his back and uses the distraction to fire a second covering of webs, this time over his original car. He hears shouts of protest from both Tony and Mr. Sousa, but he doesn’t think the older man was getting anywhere with that handgun. Based on ammo count alone, the only safe option would be to keep them out of the rest of the fight.

The metal creaks and he turns to see the masked man hoisting himself single-handedly onto the roof with him. Peter leaps to his feet just in time to dodge a sweeping low kick. 

“Aw man, nobody likes the moving Smash stages!” Peter whines as he parries with a few punches. This guy is quick and blocks them easily. On his third attack he leans in a few inches more than necessary, posing his shoulder wide and back for a fourth strike.

Darth Vader falls for the feigned opening. He punches too confidently with his left and Peter dips below the over-extended arm. He braces one hand against the muscles in the man’s armpit, preventing him from retracting as with the other hand he grabs the tear of the sleeve and pulls. 

The red star on the shoulder of the gleaming titanium alloy is a dead giveaway.

“I KNEW IT!” Peter hollers triumphantly, “You’re the W- I mean, you’re Bucky Barnes! Aren’t you?”

He feels the Winter Soldier tense at his words. “_ Zamolchi! _ ” he growls in Russian and flips over Peter’s grab, slamming them both onto their backs and wrenching his arm away with an additional kick to the ribs. _ Ow. _

“Zamboni? This is a _ gondola _man,” Peter replies as he webs the cables above them, letting the movement of the car pull him back to his feet. He shoots a second web to turn the motion to a swing kick to the chest. “You’re thinking of the thing that cleans the ice-”

The brainwashed soldier cuts him off with another growl as he pulls a large bowie knife from a hip holster and slashes for Peter’s ankles. 

“Whoa!” Peter leaps back to cling to the cables, “C’mon, I know you’re secretly one of the good guys! You wouldn’t want to hurt me with that thing!”

He swings down for another strike and fires his webs to yank the knife out of his hand. But the super-soldier reads the movement, and tosses the knife up so Peter has no resistance, then deftly roundhouse kicks him while he’s still mid-air so next thing he knows he’s flying off the side of the gondola.

Peter welcomes the fluttering feeling of freefall, both terrible and familiar to him. He lets the knife go (taking a moment to pray to the universe that no one is standing directly below them) and shoots a web to the bottom of each gondola, now about 30 feet apart and gaining distance after crossing their midpoints. The combined widening movement and elasticity of his webs slingshot him high into the air between the two cars.

“That was not very Captain America of you!” Peter shoots a flurry of webs down at him from high in the air. He lands with tightrope balance on the cable carrying his friends up the mountain.

“What would Steve Rogers say?”

The Winter Soldier answers by redrawing the rifle and firing six shots in quick succession, which Peter dodges a little too easily.

“Man, you really are one of the good guys, ‘cause that wasn’t even close-” Peter turns to the sounds of sizzling and metallic creaking. His eyes widen in horror as he sees the acidic bullets had perfectly found their targets. He leaps from the cable as it corrodes through at several points. The gondola seems to pause for a mere instant before it starts falling on the slack cable. Peter’s heart does the same.

From his current angle, landing a direct shot on the severed ends of cable, each one no more than golf ball-sized in diameter and dozens of feet away, would be tricky - even if they weren’t mid freefall. But he can consider absolutely no alternative. Not when there’s innocent people in there. Not when Tony’s in there. No. 

“No no no no no-” 

He fires his webs from both shooters and his vision whites out, followed quickly by the rest of his senses. 

He feels absolutely nothing, until he feels the burning pull at both of his arms. 

By some miracle, his webs caught both distant ends of cable, and he is now the only thing holding the line together in the air. The weight is massive and the tension less than pleasant, but nothing compared to, say, trying to pull two halves of an entire ferry boat together.

Peter could almost cry with relief, if not for the fact that he’s now rendered completely immobile, basically t-posing with dangling legs. The Winter Soldier lines up one more shot and slides a finger onto the trigger. 

Peter closes his eyes and wills himself to keep holding on no matter what happens next. He _ has _ to keep holding on.

What he hears next is a pained grunt and gunshots from several directions. The least expected of which comes from below. When he opens his eyes, it’s to see that not only has Mr. Sousa started firing again out of the rear gondola window, but on the ground below an Asian woman, who can’t be any older than Rhodey, has ditched her skis and is firing a straight-up _ sniper rifle. _

_ Isn’t Europe supposed to NOT have guns? _Peter thinks.

“About damn time the Cavalry showed up!” Mr. Sousa hollers.

Barnes is gripping his bleeding abdomen and glowering. He seems to take stock of an unwinnable situation, and he lowers his own gun, takes a running leap off the back of his gondola car, then catches the cable with his metal hand. It’s sort of funny to see him zip-line the remaining distance down the mountain, sparks flying, before he kicks his legs and flips off into some trees.

Vaguely, Peter can hear orders being shouted down below, followed by Mr. Sousa saying something to him. But the only thing Peter can focus on right now is the sight of Tony through the window, safe, and still applying pressure to the unconscious woman’s bullet wound. 

Peter thanks the universe, because there isn’t a single scratch on him. But in those deep brown eyes, an absolute storm is raging.

\- - - -

Peter has never been in a real interrogation room before. So other than what he sees in movies, he doesn’t know what an actual interrogation room even looks like, let alone how it feels to be in one.

He’s sitting at a plastic card table across from the young Asian sniper girl from earlier, in a storage shed for extra ski gear which has been temporarily commandeered by her and Mr. Sousa after a successful gondola rescue. There’s no two-way mirror, the door barely has a lock, and he’s not even handcuffed. 

But from the way she’s looking at him, Peter knows this is exactly what an interrogation room feels like.

“Stand down, Agent May. You’re scaring the daylights out of the kid,” Mr. Sousa soothes as he shuffles in from outside, just one non-ski pole cane tucked under his left arm. He takes off his jacket and scarf to reveal he’s wearing a dress shirt, one sleeve pushed up for a bandage on his lower bicep, and another bandage taped to his chin. It’s still a relief for Peter to see only the two injuries, considering the extent of the shootout just a few hours ago.

Agent May stands to offer him her folding chair. He accepts it with a gracious smile. In the quiet of the room, Peter can hear the slight difference in sound as each of his feet make contact with the floor. It confirms what he had already suspected: his left leg is artificial.

“First of all, son, I want to thank you for saving my life. Twice. Yet somehow, we haven’t been properly introduced,” he reaches a weathered hand across the table.

“I’m agent Daniel Sousa. Formerly director of the Los Angeles Strategic Scientific Reserve. But that was where I peaked,” his mouth quirks up at the self deprecating jab, “now I’m a less important mid-ranking Agent of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. You can call us-”

“-SHIELD,” Peter finishes, nodding. Mr. Sousa raises an eyebrow.

“So you’ve heard of us? I didn’t think we were that popular, especially with the youngins’…” he looks at Agent May with a smile, who just raises an eyebrow. The chilling look reminds him distinctly of MJ. 

“And who might you be, son?” he looks to Peter, who still hasn’t taken the offered hand. 

Peter’s mind races through possible responses. _ Peter Parker? But what if one of them is Hydra? They can’t have his real name! Spider-Man? John Doe? Calvin Klein, your son from the future? _

“I-I’m Peter,” he replies, firmly accepting the handshake the way Ben always taught him.

“Peter…?”

“J-just Peter.”

“Well, Peter Just-peter... Maybe you’d like to tell me a bit more about yourself. I’m a family friend of the Starks. How do you know Tony?”

Crap. The last thing he wants is for Tony to get even more mixed up than this. But how much does Sousa already know?

“...Who?”

“Nice try kid. I already spoke to Tony. Just tell me the truth.”

Peter has seen enough cop shows to know that’s a pretty old interrogation tactic. But even if he actually did talk to Tony, he has no idea what story he would call ‘the truth.’ So he improvises. "Um, we uh, we just met. Today, at the resort."

"Okay. Well, at least one of you is lying,” Agent Sousa sighs, “and my dial’s leaning away from Tony. He says you're both students at MIT, which seems like more effort to make up."

Peter swallows and Sousa pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Listen, I owe you one, and you seem like a sweet kid. I don't want to cause you trouble. I just want-"

"Who do you work for?" Agent May cuts off.

"Um, I don't work for anyone?"

“May, please…” Sousa whispers, gesturing for her to back down. "Kid, you called a masked legendary assassin by a name I haven't heard in at least two decades. You held a gondola in the air with your arms. Are you escaped Hydra? One of their experiments?"

"No! I-I don’t work for anyone. I don’t have anything to do with Hydra.”

“Then why were you discussing Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes with the Winter Soldier?”

“What? No, Bucky Barnes _ is _the Winter Soldier.”

Sousa’s eyes widen. “What?”

“You didn’t know that? How he’s brainwashed and stuff?” Peter looks at him, then at May, who looks about as surprised as she’s physically allowed to be. “Oh my god, you didn’t know that-”

The conversation is cut off by a knock at the door. May slips out, and a muffled argument follows. The voice sounds familiar. Agent May pokes her head back in.

"Agent Sousa, there's-"

"No! Enough agent-this-and-that!" shouts the familiar voice, and Rhodey charges past into the room. "My name is James Rhodes and this is Peter Parker. We are both American citizens and you are breaking several international codes by detaining him without a warrant on foreign soil. You have no jurisdiction here!”

“Mr. Rhodes, please, a terrorist attack has occured today. We consider it a matter of national security to figure this out and keep your friends safe.” Sousa insists.

“I’m not objecting to that. I’m sure Peter and Tony will be happy to help answer your questions, but only after returning to the States so they can have proper legal representation when you want to_ interrogate _ them.”

“Mr. Rhodes, please, I’m a friend of Howard’s-”

“Howard Stark _ does not _ speak for Tony or his friends,” Rhodey bites. “Now if you’ll excuse us, my friends are traumatized and deserve a good night’s rest. We can talk ‘extradition’ in the morning.” With that, Rhodey just about hoists Peter out of his chair and walks him out back into the snow. Peter is still sans-snowsuit, but Rhodey drapes an extra jacket around his shoulders.

“Uh, th-thanks man,” Peter squeaks hesitantly. Rhodey has that terrifying steely look on his face and Peter wonders how much he knows about what happened. He wonders if Rhodey just whisked him away from one interrogation only to subject him to something worse. But at Pete’s comment, he turns, and his expression washes over with sympathy.

“You said it yourself Pete,” Rhodey sighs, “Everybody needs a friend like that.”

\- - - -

Rhodey doesn’t say much else on their way back to the ski lodge. He walks Peter up the stairs and through the hallways, putting a room key in his hand.

“Listen man, I don’t know what exactly happened today. But you gotta talk to him,” Rhodey says seriously. “He’s not happy.”

With that, Rhodey slips into his own room. 

Peter takes a breath and unlocks the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just call me Thanos because I absolutely SNAPPED with this chapter!! Shouldn't brag about my own writing but I have never written an action sequence like this and I had so much fun! I'm throwing plot setup all over the damn place. And yes ma'am, I DO consider the ABC shows to be part of the MCU canon, if you don't like it You Can Leave.  
To clarify, the two SHIELD agents are Daniel Sousa (from Agent Carter, and I am of the opinion that he is the mystery husband Peggy mentions in the movies) and Melinda May aka "the Cavalry" (Agents of SHIELD).  
Plus The Winter Soldier is in here too!!!!! Whoa!!! The thing Bucky says is just Google Translate Russian for "shut up."  
I love y'all for reading this weird wild story of mine.


	6. Shout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: referenced violence of previous chapters, arguing, PTSD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long y'all! Kind of a stretch to call it a holiday break. And what's worse, this is only a lil baby chapter, but I had to keep it on its own for pacing purposes! So please accept this little angst baby but know that the next chapter is coming soon!  
(Chapter title is in reference to the Tears for Fears song.)

_ They really really ought to know _

_ Those one-track minds _

_ That took you for a working boy _

_ Kiss them goodbye _

\- - - -

  
Peter can hear the shower running and see the light at the bottom of the bathroom door. His and Tony’s bags are placed neatly at the end of a single queen bed. It looks like Tony never did finish getting their rooms upgraded. 

Again, Peter thinks about how nice it would be to run right now. He has no identity in this world, and without the internet or smartphones, it would be almost too easy to disappear in a foreign country. But he owes Tony more than that. This thought alone is like a lead weight holding him down as he sinks into the bed.

When the shower shuts off, Peter feels his doom impending like a rising orchestral number. A minute later, Tony emerges from the bathroom, hair damp, dressed in a band tee and sweatpants. He pauses in the doorway for a moment, not looking at anything but the blank space in front of him. Then he turns off the bathroom light and steps forward with conviction. He walks five paces over to the bed where Peter sits, and flops to his back on the other side. 

He makes a show of it, an overtly casual move that shows confidence. But beneath that layer, his muscles are taut as bowstrings. 

Another moment of heavy silence changes between them. Peter looks at the drapes. Tony looks at the ceiling.

“Hey man, I-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony's voice is quiet but commanding.

“Tell you ...what?” _ Which part? _ Peter thinks.

“What?” Tony scoffs, “What, as in, what the hell happened today Peter?"

"I don't know man, everything happened so fast…"

"Yeah I'm aware of that genius, _ I was there _." Tony narrows his eyes. "Or did you forget when you left me in that tin can?"

"Well I had to get out and distract him! If he kept firing those acid bullets, that Agent Sousa guy would have been in trouble. I think those were what caused the thing with the sign earlier-"

"Will you _ STOP _ trying to explain things that you know I've already figured out?" Tony sits up with a jolt. "I'm not asking for a tactical play-by-play. I want to know why you were climbing around like a fucking lizard on the side of-"

"Spider," Peter corrects reflexively.

"_ Excuse me _?"

"... climbing… like a spider? And with the webs?" Peter cringes. "... nevermind."

"Peter, you held together more than _ three thousand _ pounds of _ steel _ ," Tony leaps out of bed and starts pacing, "With your hands! While doing a tight ten of kung-fu comedy, in a god damned mask! I am _ not _ the only guy asking questions about what they saw out there!" He gestures to the drape-covered window.

Peter's breath hitches at the thought of journalists and cameras. "You didn't… Did you tell anyone?"

"No," Tony grits his teeth, "No I did not. Not even Rhodey. I thought I had made it clear that I'm not interested in spilling all your juicy little secrets," he punctuates this point by pulling a vial of the web fluid out of his bag and chucking it, aiming to the left of Peter's head. Peter snaps it out of the air effortlessly.

"But even if I _ did _ ," he continues, face devoid of any reaction to the remarkable catch other than a flash of annoyance, "what the hell would I tell them? That I've spent the past 6 days blindly toting a walking talking _ weapon _ without so much as a hint to your psychotic plans? They'd think I was a dumbass!" 

He turns to the empty room, emphatically gesturing. "Oh, hey. You know what? I _ am _ a dumbass. That explains so much…"

"Dude, you're not a dumbass!" Peter protests, rising from the edge of the bed. Tony immediately shoots him a look that sends him right back down.

"Then _ why _?"

Peter takes a moment to swallow back the many ways he has learned to deflect important questions. 

"It's not… I wasn't supposed to… " He can't form sentences with Tony looking at him like that, so he switches his focus to fidgeting with the vial in his hands. "I don't have any secret plans. I'm not like a Bond villain from those old movies or whatever. I never ask for this stuff to happen, and I never know what I'm doing, man, I really don't."

Tony hasn't cut him off yet, so he gathers the composure to glance up from his fidgeting. He is on the edge of exploding, face flushed, heart pounding, but he's listening.

"But, like you've probably figured out, I can do things… that other people can't do. So I just… if something happens, like, today, everyone was in trouble. You - you could have…" 

Peter can't stop the image of Uncle Ben from entering his mind as he says his next words.

"I wasn't always - I used to be just a normal kid, y'know? But now, if I have these abilities or whatever, then I can't just sit back and watch bad stuff happen. I _ can _ do something about it, so _ I _have to."

Tony leans into the nightstand table, chin tucked into his hand thoughtfully. "Okay, princess, sure. Since you're in a sharing mood now, mind if I clarify some of the specs?" Peter tilts his head in confusion and the brunet continues. 

"So you've got He-Man bod, with corresponding super strength?"

"Uh, sure," Peter blushes.

"You can adhere to vertical surfaces - naturally?"

Peter nods. 

"-and you use this stuff to artificially enhance that?" he gestures to the web fluid and Peter nods again.

"More or less, yeah."

"Okay, and these next ones are just hunches of mine, but you've got sensitive hearing, vision, and I'm guessing other senses too? Faster reflexes than I've ever seen, same goes for healing, balance and flexibility - all of this tracking so far?"

Peter nods again, a little embarrassed that after several years of hiding his powers throughout high school, Tony Stark has managed to clock him in less than a week.

"And while we're going with the whole 'spider' motif, where does immunity to bullets factor in?"

"What? I'm not immune to-"

"Then _ why," _ Tony's face is suddenly inches away from Peter's, "did you fucking go out there by yourself?"

Peter's mouth flaps open with sputtering strangled sounds. This is not what he expected this conversation to be about.

"Why didn't you say something? Or ask for help? Tony grabs Peter’s arm where the bullet had grazed him and the acid had started to eat away. It was already healed over, but there was some dried blood around it, and the patch of skin was pink and angry. 

“When you had the nerve to talk to me about…” Tony cuts off but gestures to his own bandaged arm.

“That's not the same thing!” Peter protests. “What was I supposed to do? That guy was crazy dangerous, man.” 

“I don't know!” Tony shouts back, “Maybe you could wait for the actual fucking _ government agents _ with _ guns _ to help? It's not your job, so it’s not your problem. Or you could have at least said something to _ me _. Maybe I could have helped if you hadn't just abandoned me-”

“I had to _ separate _ him from you! Tony, if he had kept coming for all of us you wouldn't have been able to-”

“What?” Tony snaps “Wouldn't have been able to punch him back with the force of a semi-truck? No Peter, you're right, I'm not the fucking Terminator. I’m not made of metal. _ Nobody is. _”

“Well that guy's arm was made of metal!” Peter corrects

“Wow, _ thank you _ for pointing that out to me,” Tony laments, addressing an invisible audience again. “I had no idea, but when you put it that way, I'm realizing you're right! I'm totally in over my head here. I'm just a soft little human. A damsel. I can't believe I even _ dare _ to associate with these action stars!

“Do you even know why I like you so much Peter? It's because for the first time my whole life I found something interesting that doesn't have to be everybody's damn business. That doesn't just make everybody compare me to my dad. For the whole boy genius thing, people see me like I'm just the Fisher-Price version of literally everything I do. So yeah, right off the bat you were a _ nutcase _ princess, but I thought-” 

Tony takes another deep, shaky breath. “I actually thought, hey, maybe _ I _ can _ help _ this nutcase. But I guess destiny’s a real vapid bitch, because this whole time I didn't even _ realize _ that I'm following right in my father’s footsteps, yet again, by being the tech support lackey to another fucking _ super soldier _.”

“Tony, that's not what you are!” Peter protests

“Then what am I?” Tony shoots back. “Do you even know, Peter? What am I besides the victim, or, at best, the Q to your 007?”

“I don't know!” Peter responds honestly. “I just know that you're my friend! And you're all I've got right now!” Peter is forcing down his own shaky breaths and he can feel a tear trying to break out down his cheek. 

“And I don’t know what I’d- I ca-can't deal with losing a-anyone else. I just... can't.”

Tony says nothing but keeps his boiling watery eyes locked onto Peter’s. They stay like that for several excruciating minutes, neither of them budging in the slightest. It seems like either one of them might choke on their own frustration while they wait for the other to make a move.

Tony is the one who breaks first. 

“Whatever, I'm done. I'm tired. We've got shit to deal with in the morning, and I’m going to bed.” He tugs up the covers without so much as a glance back at Peter. “You should take a shower. You smell like ass.”

Peter sniffs and realizes he’s not wrong. Fighting off a super-soldier is quite the workout, even if they hadn’t been skiing all day before that.

“When you're done you can grab a pillow if you would rather sleep on the floor. Or not. I don’t care.”

Peter greedily welcomes the invitation to storm away into the bathroom. 

When he steps back out, the lights are off and Tony is curled up facing the window, eyes shut and motionless.

Peter knows it’s a weird time to test boundaries, but he gets in on the opposite side of the bed. He just can’t bear the quiet. True silence is basically impossible for someone like Peter, but _ quiet _is relative, and he doesn’t get any comfort from the buzz of a lightbulb in the hall or the whistle of heating vents. Not when the subtle sounds drown out the other presence in the room. An unquenchable part of him needs to be as close to Tony as possible, to pick up every detail. With his eyes closed, the rhythm of vital signs is like a live Twitter feed into his friend’s wellbeing. 

So he faces away, listening, and every sniffled inhale reminds him that they are safe, for now. Even if it means he can tell Tony isn’t really asleep.

Peter doesn’t sleep much either.


	7. Here I Go Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: abduction, canon-typical violence, drugging, Hydra/Nazis, captivity, blood mentioned but not in an injury context?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is gonna seem like I'm really going off the rails but I swear some intentional stuff is happening here. 
> 
> Chapter Title is from the Whitesnake song

_ No, I don't know where I'm goin' _

_ But I sure know where I've been _

_ Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday _

_ And I've made up my mind _

_ I ain't wasting no more time _

\- - - -

The following morning is yet another sleep-deprived blur. Rhodey wakes them up with his bag already packed, insisting that the sooner they go the easier it will be to work everything out on their terms. The resort provides complimentary room service breakfast with a heartfelt apology note from management. The lobby is about as busy with people checking out as with reporters and law enforcement trying to get _ in _.

Rhodey proves that he has a real talent for talking their way out of giving statements, citing international law and providing short measured responses with an authority that is promising for his career in the Air Force. Even Tony hardly protests the self-appointed chaperoning, besides a few grumbles about how he ‘missed the part where we elected you as dad.’ 

What little forces Rhodey can’t deflect are driven back courtesy of Agent Daniel Sousa and Agent Melinda May. They are well-reminded of their obligations and legal rights, but stick to the trio unwaveringly. It feels to Peter like he unwittingly picked up an NPC on a side quest, but he can't complain about the badge-flashing skills they add to their party. He and Tony both seemed to have a dump stat in media-avoidance, but with the combined support he got through without a single microphone shoved in his face.

The unofficial official story so far is that he and Tony were just witnesses/victims to a fanatical terrorist attack. Some reports frame it as a personal feud between two masked criminals, others as a test of Cold War secret government experiments (half true), and scarcely did any of them pose the web-slinger as vigilante rather than villain. The Walkman lady was stable and in recovery for her shoulder, but couldn't remember much, even from the moments before she passed out. Peter could hardly believe that there were no photos or video of the actual gondola altercation, or at least none that had surfaced in less than 24 hours. This was by far the best perk of a smartphone-less world. 

So despite his sloppy work, the public had no idea the association Peter had with Masked Combatant #2. It was just the four of them, holding tightly to the secret of what Peter could really do, and had done yesterday.

However, this was still four more people than Peter had ever dealt with finding out he was Spider-Man from an actual fight. Peter already barely knew how to handle people finding out before, and those were all very different situations. At least back in the age of YouTube people had a preconceived idea of what "the Spider-Man" was. And it was in the context of the "super-surge" era of the 2010s, when all kinds of weirdos, enhanced and gifted by various means, were crawling out of the woodwork. Now, Peter wasn't sure what they would think of him.

Agent May was the easiest to read, though she was also the most terrifying. She was really young for an agent, which probably meant she was new, but moreso it meant that she didn't treat him with any additional sympathy for his age. She follows orders to a T, which includes the orders to back off of them, but that doesn't stop her from glowering. 

Everything about her movements are precise and graceful. Her breathing is measured, metronome-like in its even spacing. Peter almost thinks she could be some kind of android, but even she has her human moments. As they check out of the resort, her hands are full of bags so she doesn't notice her room key slip out of her hands.

"Oops, you dropped-" 

As soon as Peter moves, she retracts like a viper. Peter moves slightly faster, so he catches the key, but she snatches his wrist in a vice grip before he can fully extend it to her.

"-your key?" Peter squeaks.

"I got it," she responds curtly. In one fluid motion she squeezes his tendons in a way that makes him release the key and catches it in her own hand. She turns her attention back to the receptionist and continues where she left off as if nothing had happened. But her opposite hand wavers at her lower back, where she had started to reach for what Peter imagines is a concealed holster.

Again, fear is a reaction Peter has gotten used to. It doesn't bother him, because he knows it's a perfectly reasonable response to someone unknown and frankly dangerous as he is.

He would tell May this, if he wasn't so certain she would shoot him for it.

Rhodey is harder to gauge, because Peter still doesn't know how much he knows. For the most part he seems preoccupied with running defense, and processing the near-death experience of his best friend and sort-of-friendly acquaintance. And it's not like he wasn't already wary of Peter before all this, but he can sense a change in the notes of his apprehension, where it was once laced with annoyance and willful ignorance, it has shifted to a more profound curiosity, concern, and a third element that Peter can't place. It almost seems like pity.

With everything keeping them busy, they only barely have a few seconds of pseudo-alone time, when they are both trying to shove luggage into the trunk of the taxi waiting to take them to the airport.

"I don't expect you to say anything," says Rhodey, rotating suitcases like Tetris blocks. "But this doesn't change what I've said before."

Peter doesn't have to ask, knows he's referring to his warnings from before. 

"_I_ _will do anything in my power to protect him."_

So what Rhodey means is that he doesn't care how many gondolas Peter can bench press, he still won't hesitate to kick his ass if he messes with Tony.

"Oh, sure," replies Peter casually, as if this were a conversation about who would get the window seat on the plane, and not a reinforced threat of violence.

"...but thanks for doing what you had to," Rhodey finishes with a resolute slam of the trunk lid.

As nervous as that brief exchange makes him, Peter would rather deal with two protective Rhodey's or three menacing Agent Melinda Mays over just one Daniel Sousa.

Whether on the news or in movies, SHIELD agents are made out to be stone cold and level-headed - Agent May is a great example. The kind of persona that wouldn't totally surprise you to find out they were secretly a Hydra double agent, or even a double-double agent. Peter thought this would especially hold true for more experienced officials with all their fancy number levels for keeping secrets. But Agent Sousa wears his heart on his sleeve and every ounce of concern on his face.

Peter has never in his life seen a person so hungry for answers, even from Spider-Man conspiracy YouTubers. Each glance he throws at Peter comes with a pressed line of his lips and a furrowed brow. It's not a threatening look; he still carries himself with a gentle demeanor in sharp contrast to his younger partner. But instead of physical danger he is constantly ready to pounce on any information he can glean from Peter. No matter how clearly Rhodey draws the 'no interrogation' line he continues to circle back, trying to catch Peter alone and trick him into answering questions. He has to resist the urge to use his powers just to avoid getting cornered by him.

It's actually surprising how quickly the man can move, considering the way he had been relying heavily on his crutch-like ski poles the day before. The longer they spend indoors, Peter notices, the less noticeable his limp becomes, and he only uses a cane rather than a full crutch.

Agent Sousa notices Peter looking while they wait for their flight out of Zurich. "You can take a closer look if you want," he says, pulling up his trouser leg to reveal a plastic leg prosthetic with intricate mechanical fitting.

"Oh, I-"

"It's okay son. I'm used to it. Plus I don’t mind showing it off. Technology is quite the wonder - the older I get, the better I walk. Even if it isn’t worth a damn in cold weather.”

Peter nods, transfixed in observation of the prosthetic. The yellowish plastic casing obscured most of the hydraulics except where they were more exposed behind the knee. If it froze up in the cold, that would imply moisture, maybe even water, in the hydraulic fluid. Peter could think of several fluids that would do a better job, but perhaps synthetic lubricants were rare in 1980. Plus, if it was using a water-based lubricant, that would allow the user to sweat or walk through the rain without being rendered immobile, which is a better use-case to optimize for than freezing temperatures, he supposed. _ But how would he prevent his leg from rusting? What metal was it made from? _

“You know,” Agent Sousa interrupts, “I still wouldn’t change a thing, about how I lost this leg. My regiment, the 28th, served alongside the 107th for most of the tour. I never met Captain America myself, but Barnes, him I worked with a time or two. Do you-”

Rhodey materializes in front of them. “Hey Pete, I wanna pick out a magazine. Come with me?” he says forcefully, grabbing him by the shoulder before he has a chance to respond and shooting a glare at Agent Sousa. 

On the plus side, he thinks, this is all very non-Hydra behavior. But on the other hand, Peter knows there's no way he's going to get away without answering a lot of big questions. Or even if he does refuse to tell him anything, he might just alert the entire world to Peter’s situation while he hunts for answers. He seems to spend every moment they are not actively in motion glued to a pay phone, probing the people on the other line with hushed tones and notebook in hand.

When he gets back from taking a lap around the terminal (Rhodey hadn’t actually needed a magazine, surprise surprise) Sousa has shifted his focus to Tony. Rhodey groans in annoyance but does not zip over as fast as he had with Peter. It has been made abundantly clear that Agent Sousa is some kind of family friend, but not in the way that makes him any good at talking to teenagers, especially teenagers like Tony.

“You know kid, I was on the phone with your dad…” 

“Good for you.” Tony cuts off, getting out of his seat. He brushes past Peter. “Hey Rhodey, come pick out a magazine with me!” he chirps. Rhodey sighs but follows obediently, leaving Peter with May glaring daggers into his back and Sousa furrowing his brow impossibly deeper.

This is what makes Tony _ by far _the worst to deal with. Since waking up, he has chosen to ignore Peter’s presence entirely. At times, it takes a level of commitment Peter did not think possible, confusing airline staff by referring to their group as a party of four, dropping his bags on the ground when Peter offers to hold them, and so on.

It's making Peter so angry that he's torn. One half of him wants to ignore Tony back, give him a taste of his own medicine. A more reasonable third party would point out how ironic it is that this entire fight is about communicating and withholding information. Tony Stark is the master of withholding to the point of making anyone want to pull their hair out. But Peter is not one to back down from a challenge, he's freaking _ Spider-Man, _ and if he can keep a secret crime-fighting identity, he can certainly out-silent-treatment the other teen.

However, there's also that other half of Peter. The half that can't take so much as five minutes of Tony treating him like he's invisible. Every time his brown eyes look blankly past him, Peter finds himself clawing to fill a cavity in his chest. He has no idea when this gaping chasm grew in there; only that it was called to his attention by the echo of Tony’s silence. He’s no stranger to emotional voids, for sure, but this one has an unfamiliar shape. Whether it's just the need to have someone who comes close to understanding him in all this time-travel secret-keeping mess, or something else more profound, he can't quite decide.

One thing he knows for certain, any chance he has at getting through to Tony is obliterated by Sousa's incessant attempts at a "cool uncle you can talk to" act, and Rhodey's brick wall of brotherly protection.

That's what keeps him quiet all the way up to boarding their final connecting flight to the US. Their agent entourage was separated by several rows of seats. Rhodey had diplomatically taken the middle seat between him and Tony, but he had got up to use the bathroom a few hours in. Even though seemingly everyone else was asleep, Peter wouldn’t put it past May to have super hearing or something, so he tried to choose his words carefully.

“Dude, how long are you gonna do this?” Peter whispers pleadingly.

Tony doesn’t react other than to slouch further in his seat, staring straight ahead.

"Man, I don't know what's gonna happen when we land. I’ll be honest, I’m freaking out. And you’re the only person I really talk to and now you’re not talking to me so I’m freaking out more. I know you’re mad but isn’t this kinda like counter-intuitive to you being mad about me, like, _ not talking _?”

Stammering like this always earns Peter at least a “shut up,” in his experience with the silent treatment. At least with everyone else he's ever pissed off. But despite his best efforts, Tony remains stoic.

"Look,” Peter leans further across Rhodey’s empty seat, “I won't apologize for protecting you man, cause I'm not sorry for that. We’ve both got some issues about… safety I guess. But maybe… maybe we can make it our thing to- to protect each other? You and me?"

When he says those last few words, Tony actually looks his way, making eye contact for only a fraction of a second before flinching back. Anyone looking at them would have hardly noticed the break Tony took from staring intently at his fingernails. 

But to Peter, it was not only a concession, but an affirmation. An agreement to something new between them. He’d still rather Tony just _ speak _ to him, and he huffs a bit in frustration. But it’s enough that he stares at the side of his head for only a few more seconds before slumping back in his seat and turning to the window.

\- - - -

The airport they land at in DC is much more crowded than the small European airports they had connected on. While Peter had been all too aware of their group’s peculiarity as they travelled, the commuters here could care less about two teenagers and one twenty-something flanked by government agents. They are all brushing shoulders with hurried strangers as soon as they step out of their gate.

In most cases, Peter loves crowds. He was born and raised in New York after all. He read a book in English class once, which said something about how crowds are so much more intimate than small gatherings. He couldn’t remember the name of that book, but he thinks about the quote a lot because it’s true, especially for him. He doubts the author of the book was intentionally relating to people with super senses. But it rings true all the same, that whatever kind of sensitivity gets overwhelmed in a classroom or bodega only really gets drowned out by the perfect white noise of hundreds of people - all bickering about taxis, murmuring about luggage, and barking out coffee orders. 

It has the added benefit of making it easy for him to slip away without being tailed by any of his companions. What little the crowd noise did to soothe his nerves, he was still sweating at the impending prospect of going to some SHIELD facility and having to actually answer Sousa’s questions. So he quickly excused himself to splash some water on his face. It didn’t help much.

Even if Sousa wasn’t Hydra - he didn’t _ seem _ like the type to Peter, but who knows how much that's worth - what would be the repercussions of him finding out about the future, or at least about Bucky Barnes? Had he already irrevocably damaged the fabric of space-time? At that point, should he just tell them about Captain America too? 

_ At least Steve Rogers definitely isn’t Hydra. ...Right? _

He is making his way back to the luggage claim when he walks past an emergency exit in a quieter corridor. A familiar idea, fleeting but present nonetheless, crosses his mind of taking that exit. This is maybe the 50th time running away has passed his mind that day alone. 

Since he woke up in the hospital, the more times he elects not to run, the more complicated situations he seems to dig himself into. He's no longer even concerned about having nowhere to go, or a lack of information. Basic survival would be a breeze compared to the problems he faces on this side of that simple door. He could just walk out, abandoning SHIELD, abandoning this whole hero thing, even abandoning Tony. 

Unfortunately for Peter, he won’t do any of those things. As he has concluded 49 other times today, he wouldn’t dare. He doubts his feet would even follow if his brain gave the command. Because he's not staying for _ himself _; not anymore.

Before he has time to finish the thought, however, said emergency exit swings open and a handful of masked officers reach in, grabbing Peter. One of them jabs something small and sharp into his neck. He tries to shout, but a gloved hand covers his mouth and nose. He tries to squeeze his way out, but just as his hand lowers to drop his bag another gloved hand catches his wrists and locks them behind his back, followed by the sound of metal closing around them. The next logical step would be to fight back, because surely he can overpower a handful of random people, but he’s distracted by a chemical taste in his mouth, like his own blood has gone sour. He blinks as his vision turns inky black, and in his last loopy moment of consciousness he remembers why he only likes crowds _ most _of the time: they’re pretty much the only setting where you can get the jump on Spider-Man.

\- - - -

Peter is not entirely lucid when he regains consciousness. In his experience with drugs and junkies (combined from his time as a masked crime fighter, scarce teen parties, and the day-to-day of an average New Yorker), it takes a lot for a person to realize how sober they _ aren't _ , so that alone speaks volumes about his current situation. He spends an inconceivable amount of time deciding whether he would even like to _ be _awake. If it's anything like the time he helped Flash out of a bad trip meant to celebrate a decathlon win, he's probably only lying there for a few minutes.

So, under the influence of whatever put him to sleep, he is of two minds about the situation he opens his eyes to. The instinctual part of him, that demands to know who took him and where he has been taken, is only a quiet voice in his brain. The louder and loopier part of him is pleased enough to not be tied down when he wakes up. He sees an old man with white hair and round glasses sitting politely at a desk across from where he lies in some sort of cot. Peter's neck is sore and stiff. The room is dimly lit, and small. It’s only a little smaller than Tony’s dorm room, but he thinks it lacks the warmth - and the band posters on the walls. It could also use some windows, and the metal door at the front of the room doesn’t have a handle for some reason. It smells kind of like the basement storage unit in his apartment building, and kind of like his school, more specifically a _ certain _ classroom, he just can't remember which one.

As he looks around the room the white haired man observes him curiously and quietly, as if waiting for him to say something.

“Good morning?” Peter tries. He rubs his eyes and the man raises a single eyebrow, before scribbling something in a notepad on the desk.

“You regained consciousness in less than twenty-one hours,” the man says, with a tone someone might use to announce they made pancakes for breakfast. “That much tranquilizer would effect to the death penalty for a human constitution, but I’m glad I remained optimistic. I wonder if you truly metabolized the drugs in that time or if there is a more advanced toxin filtration system at work…”

The last thing Peter was ready to wake up to was a biochemistry lesson. But it kind of explains the classroom smell.

“I’m sorry sir, could you back up a little bit?” he interrupts with a weakly raised hand. “Who are you exactly?”

The man looks him in the eye and smiles. “Well, you’re quite more polite than I expected. My name is Dr. Werner Reinhardt, if you wish to address me.”

“That’s a weird name,” Peter replies.

“It is a German name,” the man corrects. “It’s common where I come from.”

“You don’t sound German.”

“I have had ample time to work out my accent, I suppose. It puts the American officers more at ease when I speak to them,” the man explains. “Where do _ you _ come from?”

“Oh, I’m just uh, American. Normal boring name.”

“Of course, Mr. Parker,” the man underlines something in his papers, “but where do you come from, _ really _?”

Peter blinks. “Um, like New York? People tell me I have an accent sometimes I guess…”

The amusement drains from the man's face. The instinctual voice in Peter’s mind gets a little louder. “...Why? Where are we right now?” he prods for clarification.

“We are inside a high security containment institution called The Rat. Its exact geographic location officially remains undisclosed, even to me, but I would guess somewhere in the territory of the United States, seeing as it has passed ownership from the Strategic Science Reserve to the Strategic Homeland Intelligence Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“Wait, we’re _ what _?!” Peter’s instinctual voice quickly snaps in to take the reins now. 

“This isn’t - I haven’t done anything wrong! I can’t be in _ prison _!!” Peter leaps up and in a second he’s already pounding at the door.

“Hello? Is anyone there?" he calls. "Geeze, why don’t they at least put a window on this thing - Hello?! Excuse me!!”

“Causing a fuss will make no difference,” the man says cooly below Peter’s shouting.

“You don’t understand, I’m not supposed to be here! I’m not a bad guy - uh, no offense - I’m supposed to… get a lawyer? For questions. I’m part of an investigation! There’s been a mistake or something-”

“I assure you, it was by no mistake that you were brought here.”

“But, Agent Sousa, he-”

“My invitation took precedence over that investigation.”

“Your… invitation…” Peter feels a greater sense of dread creeping.

“Yes, as a research scientist, one of their most senior officers, I occasionally have the ability to wield a higher jurisdiction. But only for a few special projects of course, given my unique status of incarceration.” He continues writing as he speaks and Peter’s eyes widen in horror, processing the words.

“And you, you’re quite the special project aren’t you?”

The man makes no movements but something in his words triggers Peter’s fight or flight response. Given the man’s obvious old age, Peter opts for flight. He starts shouting, careless of what words he’s actually forming, and pounds and kicks at the door with all his strength. 

He makes a sizable dent in the sturdy metal when he feels another sharp pain in his neck accompanied by a hissing sound.

“As I said, causing a fuss will make no difference to your situation.”

Peter reaches up to his neck and feels a thick metal collar attached snugly. Belatedly, he realizes this is why his neck is so sore. Protruding lumps at the sides contain what he guesses are a combination of locking mechanics and vials full of - if this guy is to be believed - high potency tranquilizer.

“No…”

“I'll have to make a note of this. As much as I would prefer to make observations on a conscious specimen, I can’t have you being a risk to yourself or the research environment.” Peter’s muscles grow weak and he slumps to the ground. He can taste the flood of chemicals in his bloodstream again. 

“I have much to learn from this curious anatomy of yours,” Reinhardt continues, “and I have only just begun to investigate.”

\- - - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Peter mentions is the Great Gatsby (“And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy.”) so happy roaring 20s everyone lol
> 
> For those of you who are lost this Reinhardt guy is once again an Agents of SHIELD pull. It's gonna make sense I promise! (Edit: Lots of mixed opinions about Peter getting napped but really I promise it's plot-essential. If captivity/mild torture is a trigger or not your cup of tea I recommend waiting for chapter 9)
> 
> Finally, forgive me if this chapter is abundant with typos, because I'm posting from my phone. That's also gonna make writing next chapter tricky but I'll do it for you guys <3


	8. Holding Out for a Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: medical experimentation, Hydra/Nazis, captivity, medical torture, canon-typical violence, PTSD, drugging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Sorry I've been absent for so long. 2020 has been a real kick in the dick for me, and at this point with the virus going around I bet a lot of you feel the same way. There was a health situation with someone very important to me, and that does not mix well with the threat of COVID-19. At least social isolation gave me the time I needed to finally finish this chapter, which is REALLY LONG!!!! Thanks for being so patient, and I hope you enjoy <3  
\---  
Trigger warning for Peter having a really bad time. Lots of ouchie. I'll put a TL;DR at the end if you need to skip this chapter.

_ Somewhere just beyond my reach _

_ There's someone reaching back for me _

\- - - -

When Peter wakes up again, he’s still slowed by the tranquilizer in his system, but at least he isn’t naïve to his situation any longer. Rather than open his eyes, he does his best to take stock of his situation while still appearing asleep. Slow breaths. In. Out. 

Absorbing his surroundings without sight or sobriety takes more time and concentration than he’d like. But with no small amount of determination, he manages to gather some basic information.

The bad news first: his neck is definitely still in that collar, which isn’t very comfortable. He’s lying down, and his wrists and legs are strapped in by some unknown material - he doesn’t want to give himself away by testing the strength of it. Based on the ambient noise and smell, he’s in the same room as before. He can hear someone working quietly next to him, presumably the Reinhardt guy from before. Focusing on that name, he can’t remember a single thing from history class or the news or superhero stuff. He may not have paid enough attention to those things but he is sure he would remember such a goofy quintessentially Hydra name like “Werner Reinhardt.” He’s at least partially pulling the strings, whoever he is. He looked pretty old, so he’s probably already long dead in 2018. Yet another reason for Peter to feel homesick.

Then there’s the good news: First of all, he can figure out _ how _he got here. He may not know the exact details, but it wouldn’t take a genius to put together that Hydra has captured him under the guise of SHIELD. Agent Sousa probably spilled the beans about their travel plans and someone working for the bad guys intercepted. Compared to the last few times he woke up in an unfamiliar place, at least there’s no additional time travel or memory blank spots. The other good news is that Reinhardt is wearing an old-school watch, so Peter can start counting time with the faint ticking noises. That way, he knows he’s lying there unnoticed for around 15 minutes, pondering details and turning over dead-end ideas in his mind.

It’s not a lot to go on for good news, but he’s taking what he can get.

Reinhardt sounds like he’s turning pages in a book, in between scrawling notes. There is also the faint high pitched hum of an old CRT screen, but no sounds that would indicate he’s interacting with a computer. At 17 minutes, a metallic sound comes from the door, and new smells enter the room. It smells like food, and it smells …kinda _ good _. Reinhardt gets up and accepts his lunch. Or is it dinner? It doesn't smell like eggs or any distinct breakfast food, but other than that Peter realizes he has genuinely no idea "when" he is at the moment. At this point he could be waking up in the future, or 1955, and it wouldn't surprise him. 

Maybe if he keeps his eyes closed he could wait until someone wakes him up in 2018. But he really is starting to get hungry, and it's making him lose track of the watch ticks. He might as well take a look around before his growling stomach betrays him.

He opens his eyes and does his best to sit up quietly. It's awkward with his wrists fastened to the cot, but he manages it without Reinhardt looking up from his meal. The room is full of equipment that he doesn’t remember being there before - monitors with vitals readouts, mysterious vials, surgical tools, syringes, cotton swabs, and even the sink seems like it was replaced with a larger metal basin. If it weren’t for the dent he left in the door, he would have more likely believed it was a new room entirely.

Peter can do the math. Bad guy + medical equipment equals = news.

“Hey man, no offense, but is there an RA or someone I can talk to about getting assigned a new roommate? I’m not really feeling the new decor.”

Reinhardt lifts a knife from his plate and spreads butter on a slice of brown bread. “This is a maximum security facility. There are no ‘roommates’ traditionally, but you are a high-powered terrorist the likes of which the Americans have not seen since before SHIELD was founded. They have questions, and I am a research scientist unparalleled in my field-”

“Dude why am _ I _ a terrorist? Aren’t you like, a _ Nazi _?” Peter accuses.

Reinhardt continues expositing, undisturbed. “It’s surprisingly fortunate, your outburst earlier served to exemplify the argument for my research. It has been far too long since I have had access to such proper equipment.” He takes another bite of his stew and gestures around the room with his spoon.

“Well could I at least get a takeout menu or something? I think I kinda slept through the past couple of meals.”

At this, Reinhardt pauses. “I was prepared to deliver your nutrients intravenously as needed, but if you do eat solid food it would be better for my research to learn how you metabolize, if you _ can _metabolize earth native food -”

“If I _ can _ metabolize what now?” 

“-I would like to see what effect that takes. You can start with some gluten and carbohydrates.” He takes a bread roll from his plate and places it next to on the cot beside Peter.

Peter stares at it angrily while Reinhardt takes a few more notes. He really, really wants to burst through his restraints and chuck it at him hard enough to leave a roll shaped crater in his smug old Aryan face. But it smells like salted butter and rye flour, like something from that fancy bakery in the lower east side where May would send him to get streusel for their neighbor Mrs. Schmitz’s birthday. Was _ everyone _ in this place a Hydra operative, down to the cooks? How else would this guy be getting traditional German food? 

His stomach, as predicted, starts to growl.

“Are you gonna untie me so I can eat this?”

“Is your _ mouth _in restraints? Do you digest by moving your arms in wide range?” Peter gawks, but he can’t read this guy well enough to tell whether that’s a hint of honest curiosity in his question or just twisted sarcasm. He definitely checks the boxes for the kind of evil villain who wants to see him eat like a dog. Rather than give him that satisfaction, he squirms around just enough to get the roll in his hand and bend over awkwardly to take bites of it. 

Rienhardt watches him with mild interest, nods when he starts eating, and takes more notes. Peter does his best to glare daggers sharp enough to make MJ proud.

Peter finishes his roll around 7:51, according to Reinhardt’s watch. Based on the food, he guesses that’s PM. Reinhardt finishes his meal just behind him, neatly tucking his dinnerware to the side and wrapping up his note taking. He tries to see what he’s writing, but the eye level is wrong. He places one slip of paper in an envelope, set aside from his other papers. He goes to the sink in the corner and washes his hands methodically in artful rotations of his digits. As he does, Peter tracks his gaze, which lands on some syringes.

_ Nope, that’s gonna be a HARD pass on that. _Peter thinks.

Peter scrambles to fill the silence just as the water shuts off. “So there’s a sink but no toilet? No shower? What do we do about bathroom breaks - I guess we’ll have to pick a corner. I call dibs on back left…”

“There are guards to escort prisoners to use lavatories on a regular rotation,” the scientist replies, unfazed. “Now, before you digest further, I would like to take a baseline blood sugar sample.” He approaches the cart of medical supplies and grabs a syringe, uncapping it to reveal a fine needle. “I should have done this _ before _ feeding you, but I suppose I am out of practice.”

Nobody likes needles, and Peter is no different in that regard. But needles wielded by Nazi scientists? That’s straight up fever-dream material. He would laugh if said fever dream wasn’t currently stepping towards him.

“H-hey man just who exactly are you gonna use that on? I didn’t sign up for acupuncture therapy, what kind of spa is this? Y’know I can write one hell of a Yelp review!” Words fall from his mouth as he desperately rushes through scenarios. Could he break these restraints, take down Reinhardt? Probably, but this is still a locked room-

“Withhold from struggling. It makes things much more difficult for me,” Reinhardt sighs. “Although surely by now you must realize that I have ways to _ suppress _your resistant behavior, as much as I’d lament altering research conditions.” He looks pointedly at Peter’s collar, and then his eyes glance up toward the ceiling, like he might be pondering his options. 

It’s not like Peter could forget about the hunk of metal, yet it feels suddenly heavier. Much like how the cot is stiff as a board, but he finds himself sinking further into it with the realization that he’s downright surrounded by Nazi-scientist-needles, no matter how you slice it. The only thing escaping this moment is a shaky breath from his lips. 

“Now, your arm-” Reinhardt starts, only to be interrupted by approaching footsteps and a pounding on the door.

“COMING IN! HANDS!” barks a gruff voice muffled through metal. Reinhardt sighs again and recaps the syringe, returning it to the cart.

The door unlocks and slides open with the creaks and hissing of heavy hydraulics. Two guards enter with weapons raised - taser pistols, it looks like. Not necessarily lethal, but he’d rather avoid finding out either way.

“HANDS!!” the first guard barks again, fixing his aim on Reinhardt. Peter's cellmate looks annoyed as he raises his hands above his head and kneels on the floor facing the far wall. The second guard approaches him, quieter than his partner with silver specks in his stubble. A small click comes from his restraints on the approach, and the man kneels down to undo the straps the rest of the way.

“A remote _ and _ manual restraint system, triggered by some kind of guard proximity sensor? This really is a prison for bad guys! If only I _ were _a bad guy. Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Peter-”

“_ Hands _.” Peter's hands are above his head as soon as he can move them freely. So apparently quieter prison guards ≠ friendlier prison guards.

“Sorry Mr- what’s your name again? I slept through orientation so I didn’t get to play the get-to-know-your-wardens icebreaker games.”

“You want an orientation, new guy?” the guard interrupts as he pulls Peter to his feet. “This place is all about rules. If you’re here you might not be used to that, but everybody follows rules around here, including me. My rule is that I can’t use excessive force. Your rule is to shut up and follow instructions.” He pulls Peter’s wrists behind his back with one hand and presses the taser into his side with the other. “When either of us breaks a rule is when I use this.”

With that, Peter shuts his mouth and lets Officer No Fun shove him into the hallway. 

Behind him, he catches Reinhardt getting similarly maneuvered. It’s a small comfort to see him treated like an actual prisoner. That is, until he catches the guard slipping the envelope from Reinhardt’s desk into his pocket. He is almost out of sight in the hallway as the guard nods politely at the elder inmate. And in a volume that even he can just barely make out, he hears the unmistakable whisper: “Hail Hydra.”

\- - - -

The hallway is long, and Officer No Fun isn’t much of a conversationalist, which gives Peter plenty of time to wallow in his misery for winding up in a Hydra-infested prison. He wishes for some kind of plan, or at least an idea of what to do next. Spider-Man always gets away because he's smarter than the bad guy. But there's nothing he can see for a way out. There are no other cells in the block, which he guessed because he would have heard something already if there were, and no other guards who might be more amenable. Just lots and lots of security cameras. 

“So when do I get my phone call?” he tries, and earns himself a kick behind his knees and sharp tug towards the cement floor. Like many the bully before him, Officer No Fun apparently gets a kick out of tripping people. Peter prides himself in barely stumbling at the attempt, but that just earns him a sharp twist of his arm instead, pain sparking up through his shoulder.

Okay. That’s it. Spider-Man is fresh out of ideas.

That’s where his mental state rests when the door to the bathroom is pulled open. Peter is shoved inside none to politely, but his arms are finally free.

“You have ten minutes.”

“But what if I-”

“Nine.” The door slams.

Peter has to at least be grateful that whatever SHIELD/Hydra facility this is, they think bad guys are deserving of some basic bathroom privacy. It gives him a few minutes to feel human again, and to splash some water on his face after washing his hands. He looks dejectedly in the mirror, and that’s when he spots it in the reflection.

Without daylight to shine through it, he mistook it at first for a light that burnt out. He turns around, looking directly at that spot in the ceiling, and it’s unmistakable: a small skylight. Several inches of glass, drilled into a steel frame and centered in the ceiling ten feet off the ground.

For a normal person, it would be a meaningless find; as impenetrable as the other walls surrounding it.

He looks thoroughly around the room to confirm there are no cameras. He taps the mirror, gives it the fingernail test and some angled looks, just to be sure it isn’t two-way. Satisfied, he swallows a breath, and steps onto the wall of the bathroom. He gets halfway up to the ceiling when he pauses, rethinks his actions, and drops down to turn the faucet on. With the guard standing right outside, he’ll need some kind of auditory alibi, and even though nobody believes the “I wash my hands for several minutes” trick, he’ll probably assume he’s going number two or something. He pulls the handle clean off the unit and holds it in his teeth. Rather than crawling again, he bends his knees and flips directly onto the ceiling in cat-like silence.

Up close, he takes stock of the window. Circular, roughly two feet in diameter, it would be a tight squeeze but he could manage it. The metal lip of the frame is flush with the drywall. He pulls the sink handle out of his mouth and angles it at the intersection. He draws his other arm back and slams into it with the heel of his palm. The drywall cracks around the impact like papier-mâché. He glances at the door, hears no sign of No Fun. 

He returns the sink handle to his mouth and digs his fingers into the space left behind. The installation is firm - which is to be expected, high security SHIELD facility and all that - but he grabs hold of the lip and pulls with all the strength he can channel into his fingers. It’s a micrometer or two of movement, enough to be his imagination by sight alone, but he can _ feel _the window shifting. He rotates around the window, planting his feet outside his hands to get better leverage. 

He pulls again, and with his legs joining in some more drywall crumbles around it. At this new angle his face is directly below the glass, and when he looks out he sees a clear night sky speckled with constellations. His fingers are white, numb, but this time when he pulls the metal peels back like plastic in his hands. The stars look massive to him now, so close, a feeling strangely reminiscent.

“Hey!” The bathroom door clangs open and the guard does not look happy.

“Dude!!! Whatever happened to knocking first?!” Peter yelps. 

Before the guard can reach for his weapon, Peter throws an object directly at his face. The guard catches it nearly before impact, smugly at first, then puzzled as he identifies the faucet handle. With practiced ease Peter flips off the ceiling and lands a kick with both feet directly to his target’s solar plexus. The first “oof” he makes is satisfying, but the second one paired with a crack as his body takes both of their weight into the paved floor is a bit sickening.

“I’m sorry about this man, but when I said ‘I gotta go’ I really meant it!” Peter quips, pulling the taser out of its holster. 

He draws back for a swift punch to the temple - the easiest way to knock someone out, with an amount of force he has trained to leave minimal lasting damage. 

When it lands, he feels the sharp prods at his neck, the hissing of the needles only drowned out by the sound of his fist’s impact.

“No! Dammit!” Peter curses, throwing the taser to the side and leaping back to his perch on the ceiling. “No no no, I’m so close, please!” He scrambles and feels his fingers morph from wrought iron to rubber as the toxins kick in. He manages to grab hold of the skylight’s frame again, but his strength is already at a fraction of what it was mere seconds ago. He takes in the night sky one more time; he takes in the infinite distance of the stars. “Please,” he whispers to them, tears poking at his eyes.

His body sends off one last fleeting sensation of warning, which he ignores. Volts of fire shoot through his body, the pain blinding him as he loses hold and falls to the floor. When his vision clears, he looks to the door to see two more guards, the first looking over Officer No Fun and the second dropping her taser. 

As they thrust his hands behind his back and drag him back down the hall, Peter prays for the unconsciousness to kick in soon. It doesn’t.

\- - - -

Reinhardt returns to the room after Peter has already been strapped back in for several minutes, or maybe hours. He doesn’t really care. As he waited in vain for the inky darkness to wash over his mind he realized he must have been given a smaller dose this time, to weaken him rather than knock him out.

“Did I not say so before, that I was hoping to get my answers unencumbered by unnecessary variables? And now we must resort to chemical restraints as well,” Reinhardt confirms his theory with a dejected expression. He goes quiet then, sitting in his chair, peering intensely at the mysterious creature strapped down before him.

Peter returns the scrutiny. He hasn’t had this much time to just _ look _ at a villain in a while - basically not since the Vulture, and even then it was hard to gain much insight through his panic attacks on their way to Homecoming. But now there’s nothing to panic about, nothing to lose, so he just looks. Tries to find a human emotion in his face, tries to find some tell of history there. He sees nothing past the infinitesimal creases in his skin. What he reads off this guy are three things he has already picked up on, but they seem to be all there is to him: disappointment, curiosity, and hunger. The inquisition vibe seems unfair, considering Peter is the one with infinite questions.

“How?” he croaks out. 

“That device around your neck, it is not simply a restraint - far too expensive for one purpose. It is medical, primarily. It uses a remote frequency - low range, but of course you aren’t going too far - to send out readings of your systemic vitals.” Reinhardt gestures to the CRT screen mounted on a cart. “This not only includes the basics, but also things like breathing rate, radiation level, and humidity. Even when I am not physically in the room with you I can read a number of things about your situation. I would know if the room was on fire, if you had a bad dream or,” he pauses to look at Peter coldly, “if you had gotten excited about some childish escape attempt.”

_ Well, great _. Peter thinks. At least this means they didn’t have hidden cameras in the bathroom after all. That would be pervy, even by Hydra standards. Reinhardt meanwhile has grabbed his notes again. He looks to the syringe that was capped earlier and discards it, muttering to himself. “...a wash now. Though I have to start somewhere…” He grazes over the various tools with cold eyes before settling on the monitor again.

“Coincidentally, some of the stimuli this device measures amount to something not unlike a polygraph test.” He looks back at Peter. “Such a machine reads subconscious human physiological responses associated with lying. It’s an old technology, from before my time in here even, but I’m told detectives use them for criminal investigations to this day. Much more simple to ask a witness questions when deceit is off the table. And here you are, a witness of sorts to my own investigation. How will you answer my questions?”

“Screw you.” Peter bites.

“Not a very thoughtful answer,” Reinhardt hums. “I for one do not mind working in silence. Yet here I am, explaining things to you. And I assume you are _ sane _ enough to _ eventually _understand that I have less pleasant methods at my disposal, here in this very room. He reaches across his desk, hand hovering between a scalpel and forceps. Peter’s breath catches, and both he and his captor watch as the lines on the monitor spike wildly. 

Reinhardts nods at this “Precisely my point. I am only asking, one final time, that you attempt to cooperate in answering my questions. Questions not unlike your own. With answers that you have, and that I _ will _get, one way or another.”

Reinhardt pauses, and Peter returns the silence, empty on quips. He barely has the energy to do much besides comprehend the basic situation in front of him. His deepest thoughts center on how much he’d like to avoid that scalpel. His stockpile of easy one-liners usually centers around much bigger knives and much bigger guys. Guys who scare him a lot less. He doesn’t want to say _ that _ out loud.

“What kind of questions?” he says instead.

“Nothing I haven’t asked already. I would like to know about where you come from.”

“I already said, I’m from Queens-”

“But you’re not.” Reinhardt cuts off. “Even SHIELD knows that much already. Investigations have returned no records of a Peter Parker such as yourself in the state of New York. No permanent address, no school enrollment, no pay stubs, and no birth certificates in the past few decades. No fingerprints, photographs, or anecdotal accounts matching your description. What scarce paper trail you _ have _ left behind begins barely over a week before today, and even around this time there are no telling indications of missing files in _ any _ department, municipal to national, to suggest a recent identity erasure. Not so much as a stray paperclip.” He gestures to the monitor again, to the lines as though they are simple letters for a first-grader to read. “And, apparently, none of this is even remotely surprising to you.”

Reinhardt was not 100% correct about that. If he was less sedated, Peter would have at least found this information a little interesting. It did a lot to eliminate some of his theories involving body-jumping or implanting false memories. Turns out SHIELD agents really are helpful in dealing with time travel mysteries. 

“Your appearance and accent are one thing, and perhaps you have even spent some time in that borough undetected. So you may very well _ believe _your previous statement, but it’s not the answer to my question. Nor does it answer the questions my supervisors have.” He glances up at the ceiling again. “They, simple-minded as they are, think you are dangerous and want to know who or what makes you this way. They think your lack of footprint just adds to your danger and the importance of their questions over mine. I happen to have already formed a hypothesis that makes our questions one-and-the-same.” 

He points his pen at Peter like it is both a teacher’s ruler and a loaded gun. “You are not from here. And I would very much like to know how you got here.”

Accurate as it may be, the accusation is confusing. _ Am I really so obvious that this guy is already suspecting I’m a time traveller? _ Peter thinks. But no, if that were the case, he would have phrased it differently. _ He’s not thinking fourth dimensionally Marty! _

Regardless, he’s on the trail of something, and looking at Peter expectantly. 

“I… I can’t tell you.”

In his most petulant display yet, Reinhardt actually _ rolls his eyes _at this. “Did I not just explain this? I don’t care if you are dim or deranged or compromised, but you are incorrect. You can, and will, tell me what I want to know.” 

He returns once again to the line of syringes, uncapping one and reaching for Peter’s arm, this time rather decisively. Reflexively Peter flinches away, too weak to even worry the restraints holding him in place but enough to squirm.

“No.” Reinhardt says finitely. He reaches with his left and firmly pinches an area on Peter’s bicep. It’s an invisible switch that makes him yelp in pain, and his arm goes slack.

“Your nerve endings are in much the same place as the average human,” Reinhardt remarks as he draws blood. He sets the filled syringe aside and takes note of this observation with a smile. “See? You’re already being so informative.”

With this, Peter can think of nothing else but to close his eyes, and use all his remaining strength and patience in pursuit of his only remaining escape plan: sleep. He stops counting watch ticks as he goes limp to the poking and pinching and swabbing. He tries to shut out his sense of hearing like he shuts his eyelids. Wills himself to lose hold of the reflexive warning sense that fires every time the scientist returns to his subject for another measurement. Eventually, he loses hold of it all.

\- - - -

_ You Died _the text on the screen taunts, as if that wasn’t obvious from the amount of his guts that were splattered around him.

Peter throws his controller across the room, groaning into the couch cushions.

“Either I didn't realize how immersive motion controls are these days, or you're not supposed to throw it like that.”

“This is impossible! There’s no way Flash beat this game in one weekend!” Peter grumbles.

“Well May gets back from her girls’ trip on Monday, so I’m afraid you’re on a time crunch no matter what. If she finds out I’m letting you rent this M-rated stuff, I’m toast.” Ben takes a sip of black coffee and sits down next to him in his favorite armchair, where the Saturday newspaper is waiting for him. Even in his 30s, his uncle has all the mannerisms of an old man.

“So what’s your next move buddy?”

“Nothing,” Peter whines. “The more I lose the worse it gets! I don't know where I am, I lost all my inventory and this stupid witch’s curse has me poisoned whenever I try to run. And the only way to fix any of that or get further is behind this huge freakazoid snake monster! This is bullshit!”

“Whoa, language!” Ben reprimands, folding his paper down to add a warning look. Even for Ben, cussing at his age is pushing it. “So what you’re telling me is that you just have to beat this reptile thingy?” 

“No, what I’m telling you is that he keeps beating me every time I try!”

“And this dragon, he's way bigger than you?"

"Not a dragon, but yeah."

"Does he shut down the game when he kills you?"

"...No…"

"So you keep trying. Sure they can make it hard, but they can only hold you down for as long as you decide to let them. The one thing the big baddies can't do is stop us little guys from getting back up." Ben crosses the room and picks up the controller. “_ Always _ get back up kiddo.” 

"So they can keep having fun beating me up?" Peter curls begrudgingly around a throw pillow.

"What are you, a dummy?” he laughs. “Ya gotta pay attention. Find your opportunity. They fight like they _ don't _ expect you to come back, and when they do that, they leave themselves vulnerable. They get sloppy over time. You keep your head down, you learn something, and then you hit them where it hurts!" Ben nudges him with the outstretched controller. "That's our secret superpower," he winks.

Peter looks up from his fetal position protest and huffs a deep breath through his nose. Up close Ben smells like coffee, wet bricks, and Jamaica Bay. "That's not how Dark Souls works, Ben," he argues, but takes the controller anyway.

"Sure it is kiddo! It's how every fight works." He shrugs as he returns to his chair, but not before giving his nephew's hair a thorough tousle. 

Peter presses the continue button, starts dodging around in the shadows immediately, having learned from previous runs not to stay out in the open. “Whatever. You’ve never fought any super bosses,” he mumbles with a small smile. He dodges an incoming spell attack. Flash was _ definitely _ lying about his speed run time, but that would just make it even cooler when he shows up to decathlon practice with proof that he _ actually _ did it.

Ben resumes picking apart the sports section and smiles in kind. “It’s not about who or what you’re fighting kiddo,” he comments, barely audible over the high fantasy combat sound effects. Glancing out the window at the overcast weather, he thinks it might be a good day to order takeout. He’d never been a fan of Thai food, but it was Peter and May’s favorite. “It’s about what you’re fighting for.”

\- - - -

Peter wakes from his dream only due to the loud whirring of a centrifuge. Reinhardt had not been kidding about working in silence. Whatever makes Nazis so evil apparently also makes them not mind being lonely very much. Maybe they prefer it, and that’s why they kill people - for the quiet. He only seems annoyed when the guards come to grab them on regular rotation. And it’s only once per day that the one guard - who he has named Adolf Junior - will even exchange “Hail Hydras” with him while passing that small envelope between them.

He notices that such exchanges only come from that one guard however. It gives him reason to believe that for the most part these people really think this is a legit SHIELD facility, and that Reinhardt’s role is more of an Operation Paperclip situation. Now _ that’s _something he actually remembers from history class! And he’s even pretty sure he heard on the news that the US government’s blind prioritization of the Cold War over bringing justice to German war criminals had been what allowed Hydra’s sleeper operations in the first place. But as gross as it is to be working with a Nazi scientist for research, they might be more against it had they known it was all his plan in the first place.

“Do you even know you’re actually working for Hydra?” he tries mentioning to Officer Zero Games (Officer No Fun’s replacement on bathroom duty).

“Oh sure,” Games scoffs as she drags him down the hall. “I figured it out when I noticed Hitler’s signature on my paychecks.”

“Okay, I get that you think I’m a bad guy or whatever, but I actually mean that. Why would a bad guy try to rat out another bad guy? What bad guy things do you guys even think I did?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” she remarks gruffly as she pushes him in the door. “Eight minutes.” The door slams shut.

For two whole days - at least since he starts counting time again - Peter follows the advice Ben gave him. He waits, and he observes. Reinhardt isn’t as sloppy as his uncle promised, but even throughout his quiet work he learns the following about his situation:

First, as stated, only Reinhardt and Junior are really Hydra operatives. Everything else seems to be run by the book and all the notes being taken are on SHIELD watermarked paper. The only role Junior even plays is with that envelope, which isn’t actually top-secret plans, just Reinhardt’s orders for fancy German food. Not even coded either, as far as he can tell.

Second, the collar on his neck administers sedative once every twelve hours. In the last few hours the dose wears off enough that he actually feels a bit like himself again, though not enough to consider fighting his way through guards again. The first couple of hours after a fresh dose really suck. It slows everything down, even his breathing, and leaves him feeling dehydrated and dizzy. This annoys Reinhardt each time it happens, and he always looks at the ceiling where Peter now realizes a security camera is located just out of his normal eyesight from when he’s strapped in the cot. This tells him that the person administering the injections is not Reinhardt himself, but someone in some remote location, meaning he has no chance of fighting off Reinhardt or the guards for control of the magic button.

Third, he knows he’s somewhere on the top floor of whatever this building is, thanks to the skylight. It was quickly renovated after his attempt, so unfortunately he no longer has the chance to try to identify his location through that. The electrical outlets are North American, and the guards speak English without any detectable accents. The vents pump warm air in the evenings mostly but never A/C, suggesting they are somewhere temperate. Any of these things could be misleading individually, especially for a SHIELD facility, but his best guess is that he’s in the US still.

Fourth, which he sort of knew, is that polygraphs are a load of crap. He can will himself to mess with the readouts in any number of ways, such as thinking about something funny, like how Tony would get his robots to cuss out his professors in binary, or thinking about something scary, like how Tony wouldn’t even call Rhodey if he blew up his arm and who knows where he could be right now- 

Reinhardt is very protective of his data, however, and when he notices Peter altering the readouts for no particular reason, makes him regret that choice quickly.

The fifth thing that Peter swears he’s just on the verge of figuring out, is Reinhardt’s hypothesis about “where” he comes from. He can’t imagine he actually has any idea the source of Peter’s powers. At least from his own scraped together research when he was younger, that spider left no evidence behind, no DNA or whatever. His powers aren’t all that spider-y when he’s not in the whole get-up with the webs. The observations Reinhardt is making notes of so far are the slight radiation differences in his blood, heightened senses and metabolic factors. But he also seems to be measuring everything about him, which is what makes this so confusing. Like measuring his pupil dilation speed or the length of his jaw has anything to do with his identity.

So he’s trying Ben’s quiet watching, really trying. But when he’s at his most lucid he worries that Reinhardt might actually be close to finding what he’s looking for, and he might go crazy for the quiet even before that.

“Please, can we go back to talking? Will you stop… messing with me, if I talk?”

Reinhardt looks mildly surprised as he puts down tweezers that he was using to get “samples” of Peter’s eyelashes. “I suppose that depends on what you would like to say. I have no use for complaints or made-up stories.”

“I can’t lie to you, I just want you to stop playing Operation on me, and I’ll cooperate or whatever.” Peter restates.

“Alright, Reinhardt tenders, opening a folder and clicking his pen, “Let’s start with something simple. Have you been lying to the authorities about your identity?”

“Yes, well, sort of.”

“Did you counterfeit documents claiming to be a US citizen born in 1969?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have associates, namely Stark and Rhodes, I believe, who helped mask your true identity?”

“No!” the monitor spikes. “Well, sort of, but they don’t know anything. I swear. The fake passport thing is my fault, they just wanted to take me skiing!”

“I am already confident that they are nothing more than the simple university students they claim to be. You’re saying that you had no previous contact or conspiracy with them?”

“No-”

“And, to be certain, no other contact with SHIELD agents? Daniel Sousa, or perhaps Howard Stark, the boy’s father?”

“No, I’ve never met those guys. Well, Sousa I met, duh, but Tony doesn’t, um, doesn’t even really talk about his dad. I didn’t know Sousa was a SHIELD agent until the uh- stuff went down. This really doesn’t have anything to do with the Starks or Rhodey-”

“I do not care about your chums - I am only obliging the questions prescribed by the Americans,” Reinhardt waves the folder at him, “and would elect to waste as little of my time as possible on what I already know to be insignificant. Moving on - where have you acquired knowledge of Winter Soldier program operations?”

“Um, I don’t really understand that question.”

“During the so-called ‘stuff’ in Switzerland, you referred to the person you engaged in combat with by the moniker of ‘The Winter Soldier’ - how did you come to know of this person?”

“Uh, from fighting him I guess? The name was something I just heard, like, around, seemed easy to pick him out with the arm y’know?” Technically it is a true answer; it feels right in his gut, though it itches at his mind that he wasn’t more compelled to say that he had only seen the fugitive from the news. Somehow, the question wasn’t about calling him Bucky Barnes, which meant Sousa and May must have kept that to themselves. That much was a relief. 

“Are you-” Reinhardt makes a noise of disgust at the question on his file, “Are you a current or former Soviet operative?” he continues monotonously.

“No.”

“Do you take orders from any foreign governments or private organizations of any kind and if so who do you take orders from? Please ask the subject to list commanding officers with names and in detail.” The way he trudges through the questions would make Coach Wilson seem enthusiastic. “Do you share rank with other operatives acting undercover? Likewise press for the indentities of these operatives.”

Peter hesitates when he registers the actual question. “I don’t take orders from anyone. I’m, um, on my own.” 

“Interesting answer, we’ll get back to that,” Reinhardt notes. “To finish off the asenine questions: Why did you engage with the Winter Soldier on May 2nd 1987; what were your intentions and/or plots involved; what are your greater plots and/or intentions with the US government?”

“I, uh, I don’t have plots. He was trying to hurt people, so I was stopping him.” Peter says, again grateful that these questions aren’t focusing on the things he’d rather not say.

“Excellent. Now that is dealt with,” Reinhardt says, jotting down one last note before snapping the folder shut and tossing it to the side unceremoniously, “we can get to _ my _questions. How did you find yourself in the company of your MIT compatriots?”

“Um, they were letting me crash with them I guess? It was just a place to stay,” he catches his own sincerety as he says it. “I- well, I guess it was nice to have them around too, m-maybe Tony thought I-”

“I will reiterate: how did you _ come about _ the situation of ‘crashing’ in Cambridge Massachusetts?”

“I… woke up in a hospital. Tony shared a room with me, and let me stick around when we left.”

“As I have read, yes. Why were you in that hospital?”

“I got injured?”

“How? Where were you injured?”

“I don’t know. They say it’s head trauma I think.”

Reinhardt pinches his nose in agitation. “Where were you immediately_ before _you found yourself in the greater Boston area?”

“I uh- I can’t really answer that question.”

Reinhardt fully growls, shoving back from his desk with enough force to knock some instruments to the floor. “And yet you told me you _ would, _ did you not? Have I not been patient with you? Is civil logic not part of your cognitive process?” He stands from his chair and opens a drawer, rifling through something Peter can’t see with his back turned. “I for one have always found torture to be barbaric, skews results, but if discomfort is the only thing that makes you forthcoming, then-”

“N-no, please! I swear I’m not lying! I don’t know! I can’t say anything about how I got here,” Peter pleads.

“Cannot say, hm? You know something Peter. Stop hiding it from me.” Reinhardt turns, looks at the readings on the monitor. He holds something that looks like a corkscrew.

“I can’t even try to remember, please, when I try I-” Thinking about what happened on the day of the field trip, even for a second, brings back the ringing in his ears. He could swear the last time he thought about it there were more details, but now he can hardly remember as far as what he was wearing that day, and watches that thought disappear too. He knows it was a museum, but not which one, or why. He flashes back instead to his attempt at escaping from the bathroom, aspects of the more tanglible memory connecting to the intangible. Like the stars so close from the skylight, surrounding him. He remembers the fear. The pain. Being scared that he might fall out, into that sky. He remembers the guards suffocating him. Only, when did they suffocate him? All he hears is ringing. He can’t breathe. Everyone is going to die. And he’s going to get sucked through the skylight and die forever.

Reinhardt delivers a firm slap to the face. It doesn’t actually stop the panic attack, but it brings Peter back to where he is, a cell firmly affixed to the earth. The wind made by the hand reminds him he has air to breathe. Stuttered breaths bring him back down slowly while Reinhardt makes note of his reaction. The lines on the screen look like wild scribbles.

“I can’t remember.” Peter whispers, blinking back sweaty tears. 

Reinhardt is gazing at him with a familiar look - a little pissed, a little smug with a dash of patronizing - the “I’m Going to Start Monologue-ing” look. All villains have it.

“Why, not remembering is no excuse to keep information from me. One’s memory - the human memory at least - is an easily bribed illustrator. The slightest suggestion can change the way the picture is painted. This is why I think of what I remember and what I know as two separate entities. It’s why I write things down. It’s why we use the scientific method. What I _ remember _ is an idea. What I _ know _ is the truth, or at least my most confident prediction of it. Predicting the past is no more difficult than predicting the future. And do you know how humans predict the future, Mr. Parker?" 

Peter says nothing. It’s better to just let villains go when they get like this.

"Not just scientists, like myself. Weathermen, economists, even criminal detectives. All these professions have something in common. The need to find the truth from incomplete information. They observe the truths around them, and they make a hypothesis. They test that hypothesis, and when that idea is investigated, it helps them come up with another hypothesis. That is how a financial advisor can tell you what the stock market will do before he sees it, or how a physician will advise a patient to reduce sugar intake without being present for their meals. And if you tried, I’m sure even you could use the clues around you to figure out the truth that I’m looking for." He returns the corkscrew to its drawer, as the lines on screen return to a regular pattern. 

"But for now, I will just have to continue on my own methods,” he concludes, picking up the tweezers from before.

\- - - -

The conversation with Reinhardt wasn’t exactly helpful. But it leads Peter to an idea. 

That night, he dwells on Reinhardt’s questions - not the ones that caused panic attacks, but the ones that SHIELD had for him. About the Winter Soldier, and how he knows who he is, and when he fought him. He even thinks about the implication that Tony and Rhodey were involved in his “plots.” It’s a ridiculous idea. He hopes that they are okay, he has to believe they are. At least Tony is important enough that it would be hard to make him disappear. Not only did he probably get the best lawyers Stark money could buy, he had Rhodey. Not even the Winter Soldier himself could get past Tony’s best friend in defense mode.

And that’s when it hits him, almost like he fell into a dream, but it’s a very real memory. He _ had _ fought Bucky Barnes before. During that fight, he had met the Avengers. He _ fought _ some of the Avengers, during that whole Captain America thing. He, Peter Parker, caught _ Captail America’s shield _ . He steps around thoughts of the fight itself, because they are a landmine for memory weirdness, but he can remember parts of it, most easily the news before and after. He remembers the Accords, the US military getting involved. And he remembers the crimes that made Captain America a criminal. Everyone made jokes about ‘America vs America.’ Everything involving the Avengers always turned into a meme at some point. There was only one thing people didn’t make jokes about: War Machine had gone down in combat, nearly died, and was paralyzed from the hips down. It was an act of war, directly targeting a member of the armed forces. Air Force. Colonel James Rhodes. _ Rhodey. _

Rhodey was an Avenger. Or technically, he would be. Not now, of course, not until the military could outfit him with the tech. Was it the military who gave him the tech? Was Iron Man military too? If he knew, it had blanked from his mind. He spends that entire night remembering and forgetting things, having at least three of his memory-triggered panic attacks. It feels like Groundhog Day, dying from suffocation and coming back only to do the same thing. 

Concentrating. Remembering. Avengers. Fights. Details. Rh̵o̶d̴e̵̪͝ẏ̴͔.̵̹́ Ⱦ̴̝̖̙̓̈͋̂̕̕͠๏̸͙̺͙̆̿̑͜͝ȵ̷̰̥̞̪̖͌͑̔̏y̴̟̫̭͎̞̎̈́̓͂́̑̊̊͌̈͑̀͘ ̴̰̱̩̻̖̮̈̄̈́̎$̷̭͖̦̹̄̎̑͆͗̐̋͛̂̏+̴̧̼̼̰͙̙̣͙̳͎͐͝ɐ̵̣͖̜̮̣̅͠ʀ̵͓̉͐͝k̞͕̞͚̙ͭ. Ringing. Forgetting. Suffocating. Falling. Dying. Failure. Breathing. Restarting.

But it all seems worth it to him. It feels like destiny, that at least maybe there’s a magic force in the world bringing heroes together. (Could be the same force bringing all these villains together to mess with _ him _ .) He remembers the promise he made to Tony. The promise they made to protect each other. He didn’t really offer it as a “promise” at the time, nor had Tony spoken any kind of agreement to it, but it was a thread of a reality he _ had _ to hold on to. A strand of hope.

And thus, Reinhardt’s line of questioning leads Peter to an idea. Not really an idea so much as a “fuck it, let’s see if this works” level of a plan. It could work, or he could learn something if it doesn’t. Maybe.

By the time Reinhardt wakes up, he’s annoyed to find Peter exhausted for “pointless” reasons. Perhaps it’s the increased dose of sedative, or how much he fried his brain, but Peter can’t remember what started this anymore, or how much of last night was a dream. He doesn’t need them. The hope is what he clings to, and it’s enough.

His plan begins the next time he is cognizant enough to actually remember it, which is two bathroom breaks later. 

“So seriously, have any of your coworkers ever tried to ‘Hail Hydra’ you?” he pipes up experimentally.

“I’m not interested in your games, dude,” says Officer Zero Games, earning her title.

“Seriously, just try saying it in the break room. See what happens.”

“Try shutting up, or maybe I’ll walk you back right now and let you piss yourself later.”

Peter shrugs sheepishly and remains quiet. When he gets to the bathroom, he focuses on steadying his breathing. He thinks about the times he would spend working on Lego models with Ned. Zoning out, with some good music, putting huge sets together one piece at a time. Chill, relaxed, but focused on the task at hand. He wants to think maybe it could be like that to work with Tony again, if the other teen didn’t make him so nervous. But he also sorta _ likes _that nervous feeling…

_ Focus! _He reminds himself. Quietly, he inspects the toilet and the sink, and settles on an exposed screw, bolting the tank to the wall. Something small, non-essential, and hopefully hard to notice if it was gone. At full strength, he could pull something like that out in a second. But lately even at his best he’s only slightly stronger than he was pre-spider thanks to the collar. Thus his only option is to try unscrewing it with his bare hands. It’s clumsy, and he has to try even harder not to let that frustrate him. He doesn’t finish unscrewing it by the time his ten minutes are up. On his second trip, his fingers bleed from the effort, but it finally loosens. Spider-powers prevent tetanus right? He washes it off, and since he doesn’t have pockets, hides the screw under his tongue. 

He tries to feel nothing about this tiny success. _ Legos. Ned. 4,500 pieces. Focused. _

For most of the rest of the day, his main tasks involve trying not to accidentally swallow the screw and praying Reinhardt doesn’t decide he wants to measure the circumference of his molars today. Thinking over the logistics some more, he probably should have waited for a good night’s rest, but that’s the problem with being drugged all the time: you don’t think very far ahead. Does that mean this plan will fail? Maybe. But he focuses on Legos. H_ e’s sitting on Ned’s bedroom carpet, and they’re eating pizza. Surrounded by bricks smaller than his thumb, outlining a final build larger than his desk chair. One piece at a time. _

Win or lose, he has to make his move tonight. 

_ “Hey Peter, have you seen the bag with the yellow bricks?” _

During his dinner, he spits the screw into his hand. Reinhardt doesn’t seem to notice.

_ “Come one Ned, I know you’re hiding extra hinges from me!” _

_ “You shouldn’t need them Peter, that's why they’re extra.” _

_ “You’re extra.” _

The guards are a bit late for the bathroom shift. He always gets his sedative re-up at 8:30. He wonders if they might be skipping one of the breaks tonight, or come after. If they do, it’s going to ruin his chance. 

_ “Dude look, we reached the halfway point in the instructions! Time for celebratory Red Bull!” _

He doesn’t bother to shake his feeling of relief when he finally hears footsteps approaching. Junior yelling “HANDS!” never sounded so melodic. Reinhardt almost certainly notices the biometric spikes even as he is forced to kneel.

“Wow, I almost think I’m gonna miss this routine. Is that how Stockholm Syndrome works?” Peter wonders while Games undoes his restraints.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she shoots back.

“Oh, n-nothing,” Peter stammers, making eye contact and nodding to her. She furrows her brow in confusion and stands him up roughly.

“Well, I’ll see you fellas in-” Peter starts smugly, and drops the screw from his hand. It hits the concrete floor with a satisfying metallic chime.

“What was that?” barks Junior.

“OH! OH N-NO I DROPPED THE KEY! SHIT!” Peter yells in despair.

“The fuck are you talking-” starts Games, while Junior barks “WHAT KEY?”

“Too late now - the jig is up guys! She knows all about Hydra! I showed her proof! Now you’re going to let us go or she’s gonna taser your asses!”

“Are you fucking-” Games starts again.

“What the hell did he show you? How’d he get proof?” Junior demands, redirecting his taser on his partner.

“Proof? What the FUCK Kraminsky-” Games raises her own taser from its holster.

“GET ‘EM!” Peter yells, and lunges for Reinhardt. Because he was still kneeling for the guards entering, he easily tackles him to the floor. He hears a crunch, either his nose or his glasses, but wastes no time finding out which as he dives over the desk, sending stacks of papers flying. Behind him are the sounds of Games and Junior shouting accusations and throwing punches.

The desk provides temporary cover from that fallout, but he knows what’s coming next is inevitable. He searches for his target, but he probably shouldn’t have scattered the desk’s contents so effectively. As predicted in only a few seconds the collar hisses and the needles pump him with sedative. He ignores it, pushes past the taste in his mouth on sheer willpower. He finds what he’s looking for. Grabbing a pen, he drives all concentration into writing clearly, as his other senses begin to fade. 

Behind him a body drops to the floor.

With clumsy fingers, he manages to shove the form back in its envelope. The last things he feels are the taser shooting into his spine and a decisive kick to the head. He’s not sure whether the pain or the drugs send him over the edge into blackness.

Peter says a quick prayer to that magiv force in the universe, his strand of hope released into the wind.

\- - - -

The following morning, several floors away, a low-level SHIELD employee sorts through the week’s supply order forms. As usual, he laments that despite working for a top-secret branch of the government in an unlisted facility, he effectively is no better than a mail clerk. If only the places these orders were going to had any idea the return address stuck to each envelope was a security equivalent to Area 51. But they don’t, ‘cause that’s the _ sacred _service his country asks of him. He transcribes, stamps, and mails out each order without much thought. He doesn’t even blink at the new order that crosses his desk that day. After all, requests for strange European food are a regular occurance, for reasons he knows better than to question.

_ Item: Rhodey’s Salted Licorice Order Qty: 1 _   
_ Address: 362 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA 02139 _ _   
_Delivery Note: Save Me the pieces from the top of the box.

He licks the envelope, wondering who the hell would want to eat salty licorice.

\- - - -

Peter comes to realize that stunt may well have been his last. The biggest clue for this realization is that his sedation has increased to four times per day. This makes it hard to notice much else, but eventually he figures out he has not had a bathroom break or anything to eat in an unsual amount of time. He later notices he has been hooked up to a feeding tube and catheter. He’s not fond of either. 

He never sees or hears from Officer Zero Games again, and there’s no sign of a replacement. He hopes that’s only because there’s no need for her to walk him to the bathroom anymore. The voice in his head that speaks for survival knows better, even buried under an ocean of tranquilizer.

He also knows Reinhardt is angry with him. If he doesn’t figure this out by the bandaged nose, or the aura of seething rage radiating off of him, the way he experiments has morphed significantly, for reasons that can’t be purely scientific. At his most lucid, Peter acknowledges that the tests are more aggressive: taking tissue samples, bone marrow extractions, testing healing speed and pain threshold. Then the sedatives flood his system again and all Peter can do is wonder why anyone could be so mean, so driven to cause him pain. He tries to apologize to Reinhardt, but he can’t speak around the feeding tube.

He doesn’t ever sleep anymore, not exactly. The drugs have ironically made him too nauseous to ever be really unconscious. But when he’s exhausted enough, he dreams. He dreams of having stomach flu while May takes care of him. He dreams that he’s back on the gondola, frozen still in his cot as the Winter Soldier unloads a clip into Tony. He dreams that it’s homecoming night, but Reinhardt is driving the car while Liz pretends not to notice that he’s naked and full of tubes. He has the stomach flu dream again, but May turns into Tony. He even dreams that he overhears a whispered conversation between Reinhardt and Adolf Junior.

_ “I’m just saying, sir, the kid’s only human. What good is he to Hydra if you go too far?” _

_ “You will mind your place, Holzkopf! My research is based precisely on the fact that he is not.” _

_ “Are you serious? What is he a Teen Wolf or something?” _

_ “You are young, and dull, so I’ll give you a history lesson. People thought the Red Skull was not a true scientist because he chased myths, until he found the Tesseract, an unlimited source of technology and energy buried under a church. Technology that was not from our world.” _

_ “So you think this guy’s power comes from space? That’s kinda crazy, even for SHIELD...” _

_ “It is not crazy, it is obvious. Whoever is behind this even obfuscated the evidence in his mind just to keep it hidden.” _

_ “Or, he just doesn’t remember a hit on the head?” _

_ “I’ve done the scans. He does not have the cerebral lesions of an amnesiac. Someone who forgets things will at least come up with a story eventually. A soldier or spy would be trained not to say anything. But this specimen, he fears pain. He’s in perfect health. He tries to reason his way out. The fact that he is here at all can mean nothing less than a grand plot, perhaps even out-scaling the Tesseract.” _

_ “Whatever you say, sir.” _

Peter would laugh, if he could, at the preposterous dream. The whole time Reinhardt demanded to know where he came from, he expected Peter to answer with “outer space?” When he kept explaining things specifying “human” anatomy, was it because he thought he was _ an alien? _And that he’s hiding some grand alien plot, bigger than anything with the tesseract?

It’s not as though aliens exist. Reinhardt really is crazy.

He drifts from this thought for a long time. 

Reinhardt moves on to more intensive procedures - looking to see if Peter’s bones, muscles, and even intestines are just like a human’s. 

The moments in between the surgeries feel clearer. Peter would guess that an acute dose of the tranquilizers is needed to inhibit his natural healing long enough for surgery, and that administering said dose is more complicated when his body is pumped full of it to the near limit. During these procedures, he is as close to unconscious as he can be, but then he wakes up all the more alert to the pain of the latest experiment.

Honestly? The pain is fine, relatively speaking. He’s used to getting into serious scrapes. After this much time, the drugs and the captivity set in as a new kind of normal. 

But what drives him to the edge are the moments of near clarity in between. They only serve to amplify the abject terror of waiting.

Hooked up to all this equipment, Peter feels less like a human and more like a machine designed to feel fear. He does not know what the next test will be. He does not know if he will keep waking up. If he does, maybe Reinhardt will have decided to remove a part of his body completely. On top of that, Peter has time to think about all the things Hydra might do if they _ did _figure out the secret behind his powers.

It reminds Peter of the attack on New York. His middle school was on lockdown. The entire day was spent waiting in silence. There was no strict reason to be quiet, but after some time there were no more panicked questions left to be asked, and the teachers ran out of empty reassurances. So there everyone sat muted, gathered in the gymnasium, their eyes glued to phones even though the action was just as visible outside every window. It didn’t feel real to look out and see a gaping dark hole in the sky over Midtown. Accepting that it was really there opened up Peter’s mind to the childish thought that if he did peek out the window, one of the Chitauri monsters would be right there, pressed up against the glass, ready to burst in. And so they waited. May called to remind him she loved him, Ned held his hand, and they waited all day to find out if they would be devoured by the aliens invading New York.

And suddenly, the circuits askew in his mind connect.

Aliens. In New York. And they were after the Tesseract. Stars. On the day of the field trip he had seen stars. A warning of danger. Something _ bigger _than the Tesseract. 

Peter Parker, in the firm grasp of a Nazi scientist, at the precipice of insanity, finally found his hypothesis. And if his hypothesis was right, more than just New York would need Spider-Man’s help. He has bigger fish to fry than a snake monster.

As if to punctuate this epiphany, his Spidey-senses fire back to life. It cuts through the drugs like a splash of cold water, a blast louder than his pain or his fear. Something was coming, and fast. 

In his state, it was all he could do to look at the ceiling as it came crashing in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, you made it through that!!! I know some of you had misgivings about the 'kidnapped/tortured Peter' trope. That's why this chapter is so long, because I wanted to get through it in a single chapter and then tell you it's never going to happen again!! I'm sorry to those of you who rightfully find the trope concerning. From the start I knew this story would need to have its own 'Iron Man in Captivity' moment, but I wanted to re-work Tony's hero genesis to be more about saving other people than saving himself. Peter had to take that L. I have a thousand other explanations for why I made the choices I made but I'm pretty sure y'all don't care so I won't bore you unless you ask in the comments.
> 
> For notes about the details in this chapter, Operation Paper Clip is a real thing where the US hired Nazi scientists after WWII because stuff like winning the space race against Russia mattered more to them than bringing justice to VIOLENT WAR CRIMINALS!! The MCU pretty much addresses this in Agents of SHIELD and the Captain America movies but I wanted y'all to know it happened in REAL LIFE because my editor did not. Reinhardt being in prison at all is actually better than the genuine history, because at least he is *sort of* serving time before being given a new fake identity as an American. Also, the work "Holzkopf" means blockhead in German. Thanks to TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG for that vocab, before I had used an Austrian slur by accident - BIG OOF!! 
> 
> Personally, I feel this is one of my weaker chapters, but I need to publish it so I can tell myself I did. If you weren't satisfied with it as it is now, please leave me some feedback as suggestions I can apply to future chapters :). Also if you DID like it please tell me because I need that right now ;)).  
\---  
TL;DR - Peter is being held prisoner in a SHIELD facility, officially as a dangerous unknown powered criminal. Secretly, he is there under the orders of Werner Reinhardt, through Hydra, because Reinhardt wants to learn the secrets of Peter's origins. After a couple failed escape attempts (including a vague distress signal sent to the Baker House dorm at MIT) Reinhardt's medical research becomes increasingly severe and Peter is heavily sedated. This leads Peter to several realizations, namely that Rhodey is the future War Machine of the Avengers and that his memory loss could be related to the alien attack on New York. The chapter ends with *something* busting through the ceiling of his cell.


	9. Back in Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon-typical violence (with weapons), blood and injury  
content of previous chapters is heavily referenced (captivity, medical experimentation, torture) but it's not the main focus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehehe apologies once again for how long this update took. I promise not to make any more promises ;)

_ Yes, I'm let loose _

_ From the noose _

_ That's kept me hanging about _

_ I've been looking at the sky _

_ 'Cause it's gettin' me high _

_ Forget the hearse 'cause I never die _

\- - - -

_CRASH _

If Peter thought it was hard to make sense of his situation before, the new state of his cell challenges the very limits of the word “disorienting.” Until a few moments ago, drugs, pain and his general sense of despair had been fogging his mind in a thick, oppressively warm curtain. The opening that caves in from the ceiling brings the acute opposite stimuli - cold night air fills his nostrils, dust stings his eyes, explosive noises peak in his eardrums and leave behind shrill ringing. 

Someone yelps in surprise - not him, not with the tube pressed against his vocal chords - Reinhardt, then. Concrete debris showers the room and something jagged scrapes Peter’s cheek. But the pain is welcome, fresh, sharp enough to cut through the mental drapery. 

A metallic blur plummets through the dark wound in the ceiling. By the time Peter’s thoughts catch up enough to wonder at the intrusion the lights give way, casting the cell into total darkness. He hears a mixture of shouts and impacts, and yet the room has a sudden quietness to it - none of the buzzing, beeping or humming like he had grown used to. Electronics and pneumatics around the room sigh their last breaths in tandem. Peter blinks more dust from his eyes and tries to adjust. The gash above now reveals the faintest sparkle in a canvas of indigo. The night sky which had flooded his mind for so long, had been a harbinger for all his indecipherable fears and regrets and uncertainty, has now come to life. 

During his first escape attempt in the bathroom, Peter remembers that way hope had beckoned him through the skylight. What was barely a whisper from behind that glass is an undamped cry now, amplified by the smell of fresh air he had almost forgotten. It sends a flood of adrenaline through his veins, which in turn wakes him up enough to return to the danger of the situation. _ Unknown intruder, explosion in high security prison, and I'm still half-sedated and strapped into medical equipment. Right. Shit. _

Threat response 2.0 boots up slowly in his brain. The arm restraints have loosened from lack of power. _ Did someone set off an EMP? _ He takes advantage of this and starts unhooking himself from tubes and wires. The catheter comes out with a wince. Peter smacks his dry lips, reacquainting himself with the movement of his arms, the closing of his mouth. It’s more uncomfortable than he would have thought, coming back into control of his body, and the agency comes with the weight of handling the present threat of ceiling crasher. 

The clamoring from the far side of the room halts with a final grunt. Peter squints, fruitlessly trying to make out a picture through the darkness and dust. He hears a mechanical hiss, and footsteps. They’re coming towards him. In a panic, Peter lunges for the wall. He has enough strength to hold himself up but his climbing feels less super-spider and more seventh-grade-PE. Still, he scrambles for the ceiling, at least to give himself a better vantage point if not put some distance between him and the footsteps. With his head above the particulate fog, he can make out shapes: medical equipment bashed into oblivion, two bodies that he assumes belong to Renhairdt and a guard, and an additional figure - humanoid, not larger than himself, but clunkier in places. Perhaps a robot. A blue light glows from its chest, diffused by the dust. The robot lifts up its face (or helmet?), coughs, and looks around the room, before landing its gaze in his direction. 

“Pete?”

A mixture of exclamations die in Peter’s throat as he loses grip of his corner of the ceiling. There’s no way he misheard that voice, unmistakable in his brain, so he must be dreaming instead. The figure lunges at the sight of him falling. Peter gracelessly rights himself and considers alternatives to pinching himself awake when everything already hurts. 

The figure grabs him, leaning in just shy of Peter’s own response to rise, so that as he stands their faces are suddenly inches apart.

Faint flecs of the stars outside shine back at Peter in vivid brown eyes.

“Tony?” Peter gasps, or rather he tries to, but his abused vocal chords produce a strangled rasp instead.

“Peter! Oh my _ fuck _ ,” Tony grabs his face with gloved hands, “You’re here. I got the right room, _ God, _ we’re alive, I just, and you’re - you look like _ shit... _” Tony’s face is painted with a blend of blood, sweat and grease, but he’s beaming, his smile more scintillating than anything Peter’s imagination could render. 

“Tony,” Peter manages to form the word, albeit sounding like a mylar balloon full of sand. “What- what are you doing?”

“Taking an extra semester to graduate, apparently,” Tony breathes. 

A thunder of incoming guards blossoms in the hallway, causing Peter to flinch away from Tony’s gaze and grab tensely at the wall. By the time Tony turns to follow his gaze they are pounding at the door.

“Gosh Leia, not to rush the rescue, but I think that’s our queue to jet.” Tony cocks his head at the self-made exit. Peter looks to the open sky, and back to Tony, and the questions he can’t voice must be written on his face.

“Of course, I can’t take you anywhere dressed like that, gag me!” Tony reaches down and pulls on a bundle strapped to his leg. Peter instantly recognizes a mask and web shooters amongst the clothes. Tony presses the items to Peter’s chest and turns when the banging on the door turns to scraping and creaking of metal. 

“How fast can you get changed, Clark Kent?”

His remarks are as blithe as ever, but there’s a clear flash of panic on his face as he moves toward the door. Peter catches his arm to stop him. He returns Tony’s quizzical look with a tug at the metal collar, still latched firmly around his neck.

“Oh, yeah that’s probably a bitch.” Peter can see Tony’s mental gears churning as he grabs the collar and starts breaking down the imaginary schematics. The process is cut off by the percussive sound of something breaking, and the door screeches over a cacophony of boisterous shouts. The guards are making progress. Eyebrows knit, Tony drops the investigation and stands back, raising an arm level to Peter’s neck. As an afterthought he grabs Peter’s shoulder with the opposite hand, steadying him.

“Hold still.”

Before he has the chance to question Peter is nearly blinded by the bright laser that shoots from Tony’s gauntlet-clad wrist. It singes the hairs on his neck but he’s too drawn to the rest of Tony’s getup to care. Large sculpted plates of lightweight metal cover the large areas of his limbs and torso, while numerous thickly coated wires peak out at the edges. At his hands, feet and chest are an interesting mix of tech bits and bobs that harken back to what he had seen in the lab, some familiar parts pasted on and others brought to life from blueprints. The gauntlets are the most hauntingly recognizable from the blackened skeletal pieces he had pulled from Tony’s trash, but rather than blowing up in his face the repulsor pads glow steadily in his palms. The ensemble is oddly topped with another fanny pack, because of course it is.

Tony releases his fist to cut off the laser, and the collar falls to the ground unceremoniously. His exposed skin is freezing cold, except where a small patch of lightly laser-inflamed skin radiates hotly. The contrast of sensations reminds Peter of a “_ How it feels to chew 5 Gum” _commercial.

“Shit, did I burn you?” Tony curses at the angry red mark on his neck. As if a slight burn is something Peter has the capacity to give any shits to. As if he wouldn't wish for death over another second in that collar, as if Tony Stark hadn’t just crashed into his room in a mech suit and _ lasered _it off, like some kind of-

With a crash the door finally gives way and half a dozen guards shove in. “Sorry, gotta get that.” Tony says as he flips down a modified welder’s mask, like Peter had seen in the shop, but now with the glow of a screen behind the eyes. It's also been cut to form snugly into the rest of the helmet encasing his head, creating the illusion of a familiar robotic scowl. 

It's not just the mask. Something about the entire situation is familiar to Peter.

Warning buzzes in his mind as the guards fire multiple tasers, but before Peter can pull him away Tony rockets forward and grabs the wires with an insulated hand. With a tug the guns fly out of the shooters' grips. “Hey girl scouts,” Tony calls out with tinny distortion, “even if I did want to buy Trefoils, you’re supposed to _ knock _!”

Two of the guards respond by lunging at Tony, who steps back into a firm stance and raises an open hand. The guards are knocked back by the distinct chirp of repulsor blasts.

Peter feels in his gut that he was in the middle of a realisation, but now he spots one of the six guards reaching for a very real-looking gun. He drops everything but one of the shooters, and holding it with both hands fires a web shot to affix the guard's hand to his hip, just in time. 

Tony spares a glance back at Peter as he dodges a tackle. “Thanks, but I think you’ll be more helpful-” He jumps over a swipe at his legs and fires another repulsor blast. “-when you finish getting dressed.”

Peter obliges as quickly as he can, donning the clothes which he realizes are also the result of Tony’s handiwork. The material is a thick lycra, not unlike the under-layers of his ski gear, but has the additions of athletic-padding-like-armor sewn in key places. It’s not as heavy-duty as Tony’s plating and in fact feels optimized for weight, like it could be carbon fiber. Instead of goggles the mask features a sculpted face shell of the same carbon material under the fabric and a merged eye window of tinted plastic. The gloves are fingerless, the boots thin enough to get traction. Even the shooters have been slimmed down from their previous form. Tony had seen Peter fight _ once _and somehow managed to design a near perfect suit. 

Peter, however, is still feeling far less than perfect. His skin has gone sallow over dehydrated muscles, so the fabric hangs on him oddly. It feels less like a uniform than a costume, something he would wear when Ben and May took him to conventions. His spider-senses struggle to pull his tranquilized mind to the gaggle of violent security personnel. Another taser fires and he dodges it with a huff. He leaps back to the ceiling to gain some ground with less foot traffic. The action leaves him slightly winded. 

Tony fires a repulsor directly to the solar plexus of a woman who has him in a near grapple. It's a wonder how he can move so fluidly, knowing that beneath the armor is just a normal teen, sans drugs but also sans spider-venom. More credit was due for how fit Tony was, considering that they met on the basis of traumatic injury, and time has done him no small favor in recovery. But Peter has seen enough fights to realize through intermittent glimpses just how _ new _ this is to Tony. His actions are staccato with brief hesitations, showing how Tony has to consider every attack as a unique threat. Even if he thinks quicker than most, the micro-pauses add up and leave him vulnerable.

Peter turns to cover him but can barely manage his own attackers with clumsy webshots. When he looks again Tony has let himself get backed into a wall. One of the four remaining guards bashes him with a mangled metal chair. Tony counters with a haymaker, powerful but sloppy. The chair makes contact with his helmet as the guard collapses, and sparks erupt from the scrape left by a jagged edge.

"Watch out!" Peter cries out pointlessly. The way things are going, this fight won't end well. Only three guards are left, two of them currently struggling against his light webbing, but it's certain that more will be making their way to this corner of the facility, even if radio communication is down. While he could make a run for it himself, Tony is slower, and doesn't look like he can take much more damage.

There has to be an alternative strategy. That's just about the only thing he's learned from this trip through utter hell - there's always room for the next plan. He scans the room, and his eyes fall on the metal cabinet just below him. Bolted to a support pillar, it was meant to house some heavier equipment and is one of the largest furnishings still standing in the trashed room. It's nearly as tall as the room is wide, and the guards have swarmed around it as both cover from Tony's blasts and a means of climbing up towards Peter.

A memory of their time at the ski lodge flickers, crystal clear though it feels like years ago.

"Hey Doc!" Peter calls out to Tony. "Remember the Hover-Ski 3000?" He asks, outlining the shelf with a succession of webs.

There are no facial expressions on the welder's mask, but something in the other teen's body language shifts from confusion to conviction. Peter’s chest swells knowing that Tony is thinking the same thing, feeling the trust flow through them in a complete circuit.

"Heads up McFly!" Tony quips back. He feigns a repulsor charge with his left hand, causing an incoming guard to flinch back, then in a blur switches his stance to fire his wrist laser, melting through the support pillar. In tandem Peter fires his webs at the topmost shelf, so that the instant its connection is weakened he pulls the force of his weight away from the wall. The shelf and all its contents come toppling down onto their unsuspecting targets - not unlike the ski lodge sign would have done, had Peter not intervened at the time. The chorus of crushed groans signal the end of their fight, but he douses them in webs just to be sure.

“Now _ that’s _ heavy Marty,” says Tony, shoulders lowering slightly. Peter drops to the ground and Tony closes the distance from his wall, lifting his mask again. They equally take stock of each other, scuffed and scraped, but each remains in one piece. 

"So, princess," says Tony, casual as ever. "What do you say we blow this castle?"

"Sounds great man but uh…" Peter eyes the hole Tony crashed through, looks back at him and his layers of robotic armor. Very _ heavy _ looking armor. "The drugs they gave me are still... I don't know if I can…"

Tony catches Peter's line of thought and immediately blanches with indignation. "Give me a break man, not everything revolves around you being a roided-up spidery-boy."

"Man. Spider-Man."

"That's the second time you've interrupted me with that, what is it, a stage name? Choosing your own nickname isn't a thing outside of WrestleMania, you know that right?"

"I didn't choose it! It's just… not spidery-boy."

"The point is, my escape plans are not contingent on the presence of _ Spider-Man _. I didn't even know you'd be alive when I got here."

"That's...kinda dark."

"Oh I'm sorry, was I reading the mood wrong? Did I miss the part where you made friendship bracelets with the evil doctor guy?"

Once again Peter hears shouting, far more distant than before but enough to reignite the terror of a couple minutes ago. "Ok, whatever, what are we gonna do Tony?"

"It's easy, you just gotta do the thing you do best."

"What's that?"

Smiling, Tony steps until his chest is nearly flush with Peter's, causing his brain to momentarily stop working. Tony grabs both his arms and positions them, dumb and stiff, around and over his shoulders. He does the same with his legs, hooking them around his waist. Lastly he tugs Peter's mask back over his face, and flips his likewise.

"Hang on tight," he responds, before summoning a surge of repulsors in his hands and feet. The next thing Peter registers is the sensation of weightlessness as the two of them fly out of the room and into the night.

Fly. Flying. Tony can fly. 

Upon exiting, Peter can see the building is at least ten stories high, and stands solitary amidst a lush evergreen forest. Mountains dress the horizon. The moon is a slim crescent.

The picturesque moment is brief, however, and Tony lands them clumsily on the roof of the building almost as quickly as they took off. 

"Okay, I don't know why I thought that was a good position." Tony grunts. "You should switch to piggy-back-"

"-you can FLY?!?"

"Of course I can fly! How do you think I got here?"

"I thought maybe Rhodey…"

"Wow, that's rude on a couple levels, plus the Air Force doesn't let you bum rides, I already asked him."

"Does Rhodey even know about this?" Peter balks, jumping down from his koala cling.

"No comment."

The lights of the building return to life, starting from the ground floor and then gradually up to the top, finishing with the shrill of an alarm.

"We'll table this discussion for later." Tony squeaks, and Peter nods enthusiastically. He rounds to Tony's back as suggested. As he leans forward to climb on, Tony whips back around to face him again. "Oh shit! I almost forgot to give you my terms!"

"What?"

"I had like a whole speech prepared and everything, damn, but then it was all," Tony trails off into mock explosion noises and pantomimed fighting.

Peter's senses warn him of approaching forces at the roof access door about 20 yards from where they stand. He covers the door thoroughly with webs, a temporary solution. "Can we please _ go?" _

"Yes, princess, I _ will _ save you, on one condition." Tony pauses for effect, to which Peter responds with a voice cracked whine. "You're going to tell me _ everything. _ No more amnesia bullshit. No protecting my innocence. Spare no gory detail."

"Okay okay," Peter agrees, scrambling onto Tony's back, "I promise, can we please-" He gets cut off and Tony blasts into the air, far more efficiently.

Loyal to his instructions, Peter holds on for dear life as the world shrinks below them. He's not normally scared of heights, for obvious reasons, but said reasons usually involve one or two things he can hook his webs onto. The open air is a different beast for Peter, feels different, smells different.

It's not until he stops looking at the earth below, stops looking at the stars above, not until he presses his face into the juncture of Tony's shoulder, feels cool metal, smells motor oil and ash and coffee, not until then do his thoughts finally get the chance to catch up with him.

For all that trying to unlock memories has failed him, Peter can only take stock of his current situation. As Reinhardt said, he doesn't have to remember, he just has to _ know _.

That night Peter comes to know three things:

First, the circumstances of his time travel probably have something to do with aliens, might involve extremely powerful glowing artifacts like the kind Loki almost destroyed New York with, and _ definitely _stand to threaten more than just one city. For whatever reason, he now has about three decades to figure out what that threat is and stop it.

Second, even though he had done nothing but piss him off, Tony Stark came to rescue him from the clutches of Hydra. He did so without powers or armies, just him with his brilliant, beautiful mind, and bravery beyond calculation. And frankly, Peter was falling for him. Hard. If he hadn't had time to work through his denial before, captivity certainly cleared his schedule. All it took was hearing his voice call out his name, just the one syllable, the nail in the proverbial lovestruck coffin. So here Peter is, crushing on a young billionaire who should technically be at least three times his age. A perverse paradox, _ literal _ light-years out of his league _ at best _, and yet Peter couldn't even bring himself to feel bothered at the notion. 

Third, Peter realizes what was so familiar about Tony's suit. The scowl, the repulsors, the flight capability, the arc reactor glow - all these aspects would make it seem like Tony had borrowed the vague idea of War Machine from Rhodey for the sake of this rescue mission. But he hadn't borrowed anything. The tech was uniquely Tony's, and he himself had seen every aspect of the suit just waiting to be assembled into his masterpiece. The vision was all it took, even though the idea of Iron Man armor did not exist yet. Even if it did, the armor was only privy to the Avengers, and the Stark tech involved. And with that in mind, suddenly Peter understood the gaps in his memory. Because what if Stark tech was more than just _ involved _ with the Avengers? And what if _ one person _ had the ability to make things from scratch with enough power to fight demi-gods? What if he is currently being rescued by that person?

"Holy shit," Peter gasped as the wind whipped around them, "Tony, I think _ you're _ Iron Man!"

"I'm _ what _?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my birthday is soon so as a present pop me a comment would ya? thx <3


	10. Kids In America

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon typical violence, brief homophobia mention, attempted & implied crimes against women (kept intentionally vague for most of it), injury mentions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you kids like exposition because ughghh

_ Bright lights, the music gets faster _

_ Look, boy, don't check on your watch, not another glance _

_ I'm not leaving now, honey, not a chance _

_ Hot-shot, give me no problems _

_ Much later, baby, you'll be saying nevermind _

_ You know life is cruel, life is never kind _

\- - - -

"Tony oh my God you're Iron Man and I completely forgot, I mean you _ will be _ Iron Man but also I guess you are now because you have the suit already but it's a little different and oh my gosh did I just totally upset the space-time-"

"I'm glad you're excited, princess, but I got no clue what you're saying." Tony's voice is artificially amplified by a speaker in his helmet as the wind roars around them. "What do you say we find a place to land and get this conversation catered?"

Because audible questions are no longer an option, Peter tries to convey his apprehension through how he grabs onto Tony.

"Have thee no faith George Michael?" Peter can hear the eye roll. "Believe it or not, the plan involves a pit stop. My suit can't keep going forever, and the one thing they're going to be looking for is unregistered air traffic. The sooner we hit the ground, the sooner we go back to being harmless inconspicuous teenagers." Peter relaxes a little (but not too much) as he processes how much Tony seems to have thought this through. "Besides," he adds smugly, "I've never been to Portland, but I hear the food is great."

In minutes Peter watches city lights get larger and brighter, until they are landing on yet another rooftop in a vacant neighborhood.

It takes Peter a couple seconds too long to realize Tony is waiting for him to un-cling himself, and he does so gingerly. Tony spins him around on his feet to give him another scrutinizing scan from the bottom up. Even behind his mask the eye contact at the end leaves him feeling woozy.

"Uh, before we move on to dinner plans, should we like, get you to a hospital or something?" Behind the distortion of the speakers, Peter could swear he hears a hint of voice cracking.

Peter shakes his head fervently: he could feel the toxins working their way out of his system, and, though he was exhausted, nothing Reinhardt had done wouldn't heal itself in a matter of hours once he was running at full capacity. His motivation had been investigation, not injury. At least not for the most part. By the time they checked him into an emergency room, any treatment he got wouldn’t be worth the amount of explaining the doctors would need.

And speaking of explaining.

"Tony, dude, you aren't going to believe this. I mean, how did you even-"

"Jeeze man, you sound like you've been smoking 12 packs a day for the past 50 years, what the fuck? How are you even standing?"

Peter scratches his neck, itching as it heals rapidly. He's aware of his tendency to brush off extreme physical and mental trauma, but not ready to analyze it at the moment. "I, uh," he rasps, interrupted by a painful cough. "I bounce back quick, you'll see."

Tony's metal head tilts slightly, giving the impression that he isn't convinced. His right hand twitches, lifts, but before he can decide where it might land, Peter steps back. He shrugs and straightens his posture in a way that he hopes makes him look less broken. "I _ am _ kind of hungry," he croaks.

Tony's shoulders fall, and said hand raises to remove his helmet instead. "Well, in any case, it's time for another costume change Barbie," he says.

From the bundles he had strapped to himself Tony procures a gym bag. He unstraps his armoring to reveal a surprisingly typical outfit, albeit less colorful than he normally goes for. His black windbreaker unzips to reveal, of course, a band tee underneath. He hands Peter a baggy red sweatshirt. It must be the same one he had when he showed up at Cambridge. Tony also mutters something about how the weird pants would have to do for now. Peter wouldn't mind, as he is no stranger to public undressing in an alleyway or rooftop, but Tony doesn't need to know that. When the mask and gloves are off (he's not ready to part with the shooters, which tuck into the sleeves nicely) Tony pulls out a baseball hat for him as well.

"I think you should _ at least _ get some water in you, but" Tony speaks as they straighten up, "what sort of grub are you in the mood for?"

"Burgers," Peter replies immediately. He'd give almost anything to be able to chew on some warm, perfectly unhealthy fast food. He knows they have bigger fish to fry but… _ Fry, fries, french fries. _ The mental image of greasy carbs makes his mouth feel drier in a way he didn't know was possible.

Tony lets out a surprised laugh.

"What?" Peter coughs. His voice still sounds ragged, but it hurts less and less each time he speaks.

"It's nothing - I was just thinking the same thing," Tony muses. "The rules of jinx don't exactly apply there, so I guess I'll go buy _ myself _ a Coke." He makes for the ledge of the roof, but Peter grabs him by the shoulder. 

"Wait, shouldn't we have sunglasses or something?"

"For what _ sun _?" Tony gestures to the darkness around them.

"Well, we can't just have our normal faces exposed! What if they run facial recognition software?"

The look Tony gives him isn't incredulous, per say, more like immensely questioning. What Peter just said might have sounded insane to anyone else in this decade, but Tony looks like he's considering every implication and iteration of the idea.

"Nevermind." Peter cuts them off before he accidentally inspires the young Stark to produce yet another milestone of technology before its time.

"You sure? You don't want to go Corey Hart out there?"

"Uh, who's he?"

It may as well have been a rhetorical question, signifying the two of them falling back into their patterns of making references that are lost of the other. Anything else said between them would just open the dialogue for more follow-up questions, and Peter really _ is _ hungry.

"Do you mind?" Tony gestures, and Peter grabs him by the waist, webs them to the street below. He feels Tony shiver as he puts him down, though it’s a warm summer night. The two of them walk briskly, wandering until they find a burger chain open late - or, as Peter realizes, open _ early _. 

Tony pops in to order for them alone, as the less conspicuously dressed of the two. By this time Peter feels returned to himself, his senses expanding to pick up the squeaks of a rat in the dumpster, the smog and hot rubber smell from a freeway half a mile away. 

It has the unfortunate side effect of reminding him just how _ busy _the world is, how many dangers come with being out in the open. Even from outside he catches a line cook squinting at the young man in sweats and a Zeppelin shirt ordering a large amount of “breakfast.” He has to calm the rampant paranoia - wondering if the cook’s an undercover agent, or even a shape-shifting alien, or if the news had already broadcast their faces as fugitives - when occam’s razor would suggest it was mostly in response to two teenage guys grabbing a meal at this hour. All the same, his focus locks in on the guy, and for that reason, when Tony gives a wink and finger guns to the cashier, Peter picks up on his grumbled comments and the homophobic slur encased in them. 

_ Well. Some forms of evil are less exciting than others. _It's a lesson he's learned many times patrolling the streets of New York.

Oblivious, Tony pays in cash and emerges a few minutes later with an armful of greasy paper bags. He smirks at Peter, who does his best to return with a smile of awe and gratitude befitting their harvest. Peter had found a bench to wait on, but as Tony approaches to join him he stands. He nods quietly and starts walking briskly, knowing Tony will follow close behind. He follows his senses for somewhere quiet, leads them over a grassy hill to a secluded park. It’s out of his earshot from any other human activity, which means it’s almost certainly safe from anything short of another super-soldier or spider-person. Peter spots a picnic table but Tony picks up the pace and makes a beeline for a rusty swing set instead. They sit on neighboring swings and the air falls heavy with the mutual understanding that _ now _ is the time to answer some big questions.

Tony hands Peter a bag teeming with french fries and wax-paper wrapped burgers. “So Anastasia, where do we start?”

Peter swallows a mouthful of cheeseburger that he hadn’t consciously taken a bite of. “Um, do you think you could go first? My part’s gonna be a lot.”

Tony nearly scoffs out his half-chewed fries. “Yeah, fat chance. That’s a foul!” He whistles with his fingers and steals some of Peter’s own fries as a penalty. “Just what makes you think the details of my daring rescue are just the opener to your shady past?”

Peter swallows another bite of his burger, which is already nearly gone. He takes a second to consider what response would satisfy Tony, who has waited so long for an explanation.

“Ok so I’m, like, from the future, specifically the year 2018. I have until then to figure out how I’m going to save the world, I guess, and all I know is that it’s impossible for me to remember what happened, and that you’re involved in that somehow but as an older guy who flies around in a suit of armor kind of like that one but way crazier. Oh and I was kidnapped by a Hydra scientist because they're still a thing and secretly running SHIELD and making super soldiers and weapons and I think a bunch of stuff is happening earlier than it was supposed to because I accidentally fought Captain America's brainwashed best friend.”

Peter braces for Tony to laugh or tease, or snap at him for lying so outlandishly, but he doesn’t hear a sound. He meets his eyes to see them wide as saucers, and wordlessly Tony offers Peter some of the fries from his own bag.

\- - - -

They talk until they run out of burgers. Then they talk until they pick all the fries out of the bottom of the bag. Peter isn’t sure if he’s the one who starts swinging his legs out of nervous habit, or if he just mirrors the behavior from Tony. They end up swinging side by side, and the familiar pendulum motion, even such a subtle version of it, is soothing to Peter.

Tony goes first. He explains how officially Peter was never arrested, and the whole thing was treated like he ran away. Even Agent Sousa believed it, thought Tony had something to do with it, too. Tony didn't believe Peter would run, but what confirmed his suspicions was the way the authorities suddenly acted like nothing happened at all. If one of their witnesses bolted, SHIELD should have been _ more _eager to interview him and Rhodey, not send them home.

Tony spent the rest of his break looking for answers only to find nothing - suspiciously nothing. No record by SHIELD, any other law enforcement, no strange activity reported that could have been caused by a super-teen. Even news reports of what happened in Switzerland had been watered down to mechanical mishaps and tourists who were lucky to be alive despite "reckless ignorance of gondola safety."

They lost contact with Sousa and May, and even Rhodey was _ persuaded _ into dropping the issue. By the time MIT started classes again, it was as if Tony was the only person who acknowledged what happened.

That was when I really started wigging," Tony explains. "Couldn't exactly focus on school, so I pretty much lived in the workshop. I don't know which genius seriously thought I'd jump back to it all hunky-dory, but like, I couldn't sleep, forget it. I just kept thinking, I'm involved, right? So whatever happened to you…" Tony tenses up during this part of the story, and it's easy enough to guess where his train of thought went: he thought Peter was dead. And if Peter was dead, Tony could have easily been the next target.

That fear lead to Tony making the suit. "There wasn't a plan at first. But I've always had this dumb idea, cause so many people think I'm never going to protect myself. I'm just the robot kid. And, uh, I grew up seeing all these stupid sketches for Captain America suits in my dad's stuff. They were so dumb, like, I could do better than that _ and _be the robot kid. And next thing you know…" he points to the duffle bag. "I sort of failed a few classes in the process, but y'know, make a big omelette, crack a few dozen eggs." 

On top of academic sacrifices, Tony admits he was careless about sneaking around his lab time restrictions. "When I finally got caught it was so close to graduation that I nearly got away with a slap on the wrist, but my attitude was less than charming at the time, and that turned into a screaming match which turned into a mutual agreement to suspend my enrollment status," he says, eluding to dramatics Peter can only imagine. "Rhodey even stuck out his neck to try to smooth things over, but I said something about where he could stick his helping hands, more yelling, blah blah blah. He'll get over it."

"Does Rho-"

"Ah-ah! No interruptions during my story time."

Tony continues to explain getting kicked out, still no plan or even a place to go in mind. The timing of all this was pretty much miraculous, however, because he was literally checking his mailbox one last time before moving out of the dorms when he found a strange letter: an order form for candy with a delivery address to an unnamed facility in Washington State. Tony saw it as a good excuse to go back-packing, wandering more than a little bit off-trail in the neighboring state park.

"That place was all fenced in but looked pretty normal. But then I tapped into the comms and it was all Area 51 and shit. But none of it was sounding familiar, until I hacked the CTV feed into what I _ thought _ was the solitary confinement ward… and uh, bingo." He gestures to Peter, his tone drifting haunted before picking back up. "That's when it turned into a rescue mission - you can say thank you anytime, by the way."

"Th- Wait, hold up, you decided to _ blow up a prison??? _" Peter gawks.

"Well I had a pretty good feeling they wouldn't let you out just because I asked nicely," Tony defends.

"But how did you know I wasn't- why would-"

"Because I wasn't going to leave you there!" Tony snaps, briefly losing the hold he had on his volume. "And now we're even," Tony adds, which is much more effective at shutting Peter up. "Plus, it wasn't as stupid as you think. The whole secrecy thing made the security a lot less intense on the outside…" 

Tony rushes the remaining details, but the results of his crazy rescue scheme are obvious enough. Peter certainly can't complain.

"...and so now the official story is that the young heir of the Stark empire is on his obligatory rebellious teenage bender. In a couple days some of the contestants of Miss Teen USA will be blabbing to all the tabloids about how wildly I was partying with them on a two week Carribean cruise." Tony concludes.

"Why?" Peter asks.

"Because I gave them a _ free _ two week Carribean cruise?? Why else?" Tony looks at Peter like he's talking to a flat-earther. "Y'know I'm happy to share alibi-building tips later but can we _ please _move on to your stuff?" he whines impatiently.

Peter inhales sharply, feeling a phantom nausea from the drugs that are nearly out of his system. "Okay but… do you promise to believe me? Whatever I say?"

"Absolutely not!" Tony replies easily, "But considering how much of my reality you've challenged so far, I'd like to see you try to stump me!"

"_ Wellll _ I don't know if uh-" Peter stammers until he burps from nervous gas. He blushes, Tony snickers, and Peter skids his feet in the dirt to stop swinging. Tony notices and does the same, gearing up for whatever comes next. 

_ No going back now. _Peter thinks.

"Okay, please don't be mad, but I'm still not going to be able to explain everything. I swear that's not an excuse! The future stuff is true. I don't really have amnesia, but it's like there's something or someone still trying to erase my memories or prevent me from thinking about certain stuff. Like it's a virus made to target keywords in my head."

"What kind of keywords?" Tony asks calmly.

"Two things, kind of. The first is that I can only remember the morning of my last day in New York. Or at least I think it was my last day - whatever this thing is keeps erasing further and further back. Whatever happened is probably how I ended up getting kicked back in time. There's bits of things that feel familiar, like a dream, but it's like I could be making stuff up just to connect the dots. Like I _ think _ I was in space, but I only started to figure that out because I got locked up with a crazy nazi scientist who thinks _ I'm _ an alien. Which is-"

"Back up princess. You were in space? As in, _ the final frontier _?"

"Oh, yeah! Like, 90% sure, actually. But everyone found out about aliens and stuff a few years ago so it's not that nutso."

"What kind of aliens we talking? George Lukas or Ridley Scott?"

"Uhh…" Peter thinks back to the Chitauri, with their exoskeletal bodies and hollow faces. "Mix of both. Kind of anything you can imagine I think. Some of them look exactly like humans."

"And does that make you…"

"No!" Peter tries not to take offense as the idea. "I'm just, me, human boy. Born to Mary and Richard Parker August 2001 at Queens General Hospital."

"2001? That's a year?"

"Yes?"

"Wow. How the fuck did you just make me feel _ old _?"

"Sorry?"

"I guess I forgive you. What was the other keyword?"

"Uh, speaking of feeling old, it's… you, Tony. But a grown-up version."

"Me?"

"I wasn't sure at first. I could remember your name, as like a basic concept. You're a big billionaire famous guy in my time. So I didn't think what I was forgetting had anything to do with you. But I think we actually knew each other, and that would explain all the stuff I couldn't remember about the Avengers, if they were the parts you were in. I could remember almost everyone except Iron Man." Peter hesitates in his babbling when he considers mentioning Rhodey.

"We know each other? In the future. And I'm old… were we- are we, friends?" Tony asks.

"Huh." Peter had not really considered this possibility, or any other possibility for that matter. The face of Tony Stark, the middle-aged celebrity playboy tech magnate with a ridiculous goatee, was difficult to connect with any of the feelings he currently has for the bright-eyed teenager in front of him. The Tony Stark of 2018 was old enough to be his dad. It feels decidedly inappropriate, but knowing they are the same person he can't help but want there to be some warmth between them. "I hope so. I think… I think you even knew I was Spider-Man. None of the other Avengers knew, so like, I think you were my connection to them."

"Who are these revengers guys?"

"It's 'uh-vengers' - don't look at me like that man, I'm pretty sure _ you _named them. They're like, earth's mightiest heroes? That's sort of the tagline. People who fight the fights that average people, uh, can't."

"Average like me?" Tony asks with a hint of bitterness.

"No! No no way you're-" Peter gestures frantically at Tony, then to his duffle bag containing the pieces of armor. "You're _ Iron Man! _Dude. You made the suit! You should see how much crazier the tech gets in the future, you're like a tank meets a fighter jet! You can take on Captain America!"

"So I make more super weapons?" Tony's tone veers darker. "And a squad of next-gen Steve Rogers-es? We even do that shit to kids?" He points to Peter.

"That's not what I meant! It's not a military thing, we're not super soldiers. We're just, super...heroes."

"Superheroes?" Tony bursts out laughing.

"Hey man you _ promised- _"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. But _ shit. _ " Tony wheezes. "It explains the code names _ Spider-Man. _ If you're from Krypton then that makes me Batman right? Oh it's just perfect, I'm already the rich guy. Or, wait, if I'm old, does that make you my boy sidekick? This is too good man-"

"Tony, cut it out, or I'll stop talking!"

"Okay, okay I'll stop. But c'mon Pete, how am I supposed to imagine it? That stuff is all gimmicks to veil propaganda for kids. The Joker attacks Gotham to teach little boys that wearing makeup is a gateway drug to the downfall of capitalism. Do the aliens in 2018 all have terrible foreign accents? Who's Spider-Man's nemesis supposed to be? Lord Flyswatter of the Communist Party?"

"It's not about having a nemesis! There's no agenda stuff. You, well, you just have to save people."

"Firefighters save people, Peter. Doctors save people. Weapons and armor are for soldiers and criminals, costume or no costume."

"Or, or!" Peter interjects. "They're for people who want to stand up _ against _ soldiers and criminals. And other bad guys."

"Oh _ God. _ There is no chance I'm believing you if you're about to tell me I grew up to be _ a cop _." 

"That's not- you aren't listening to me Tony!"

"Jeeze okay," Tony holds his hands up defensively, "maybe it's better to take this future stuff in small doses. Or maybe it’s ‘cause I haven’t slept in a billion years.” He sighs and pinches his nose. “I'm tired, man. Aren’t you tired?"

"A little." Peter grumbles. He'd thought being in an extended state of drug-induced lethargy would be enough sleep for a lifetime, but apparently his body's fast recovery means he's equally fast to resume his metabolism's demanding sleep cycles.

"Great!" Tony stands with fresh motivation. "I'll grab us a shitty motel room and-"

"I don't think that's a good idea," says Peter.

"What? I'll get two beds this time, you prude."

"No, I mean, the motel in general. Shouldn't we be laying low?"

"What's lower than a Super8? We're far from the weirdest clientele they have."

"Yeah but haven't you ever seen a crime show? Police stake out places like that all the time. Or they're owned by the mob, or traffickers. SHIELD has all sorts of connections," Peter insists.

"So we should hit up the local 5 star hotel? Camp in the park?"

"No, people are always going to be an issue - maybe camping, but it leaves us exposed."

"We're in a _ city _ Peter. If you can think of a place to sleep that doesn't have people, I'm open to suggestions." 

Peter considers this, and smiles as an idea clicks into place. "I think I spotted something on our way in."

\- - - -

"I am now feeling considerably less open to suggestions." Tony's voice barely carries over the wind as Peter webs them to their destination. 

"C'mon man, you're the one who mentioned camping," Peter says.

"I meant like, at a bus stop or under an overpass. The underbelly of a massive steel bridge is not what I had in mind!" Tony argues.

"I asked you earlier if you were scared of heights-"

"I'm not-"

"-and it's totally safe! Big bridges always have tons of extra wide beams and platforms built in so workers can move around during construction, but nobody can get to them anymore without cranes. And you see the birds nests over there? That's how you know it's safe from the wind knocking you off. And check it out-" Peter fires out a sheet of webs between two beams. "Instant hammock!"

Tony cautiously pokes out from where he backed himself against a steel column. He tests the tension of Peter's hammock with his hand, then tosses his duffle bag at it, like he expects it to collapse under the weight of their equipment alone. 

"How many times have you spent the night like this?" he questions. 

"Um, it's been naps mostly. But I do it all the time!" Peter webs up an adjacent set of beams and leaps confidently into his own hammock.

"Oh no you don't!" Tony objects. "You're not getting your own bunk. If I fall out of this thing, I'm taking you with me."

"Um, are you sure?" 

"Of course I'm sure. You'll earn back personal space privileges if you can go 48 hours without putting one of us in mortal danger."

Peter can't argue with the sentiment, no more unreasonable than the first time they shared a bed, after their argument about the gondola stuff. It would be hypocritical to expect Tony not to have a similar response of protective anxiety. Even now, Peter had subconsciously picked his own resting spot to be close enough to Tony's that he could easily sense him. Narrowing their physical distance was only fair and practical to accommodate for a person without enhanced senses.

However, at least back at the resort in Switzerland Peter hadn't yet realized his _ massive crush _ on said person. 

Without the ability to make that excuse, Peter surrenders his hammock and climbs gracefully under the beams to Tony's. Peter's casual defiance of gravity earns a muttered "show off" from Tony, who looks away as he drops in next to him. Thankfully this means he doesn't see how furiously Peter blushes as he tries to get comfortable.

Another difference between this and a hotel bed: the physics of hammocks work to push things closer to the center. _ Emphasis on closer _. Even if they try to lie back-to-back, they'll have to breathe through a face full of web. Peter settles for a partial outward turn with his arms glued to his sides. The only mercy is the duffle bag acting as a barrier between them, but it's not much.

If this was a romantic comedy, Peter would wake up in the morning to find himself holding Tony in some compromising position, his subconscious mind having forced them into a dramatically intimate moment. This does not turn out to be an issue. Although he and Tony are both exhausted, a combination of nerves and the thunderous sounds of traffic above wake both of them up dozens of times in just a handful of hours. It doesn't leave much time for his subconscious to try anything funny.

By sheer force of determination, Peter continues to attempt sleeping until the sun is high in the sky. 

This time, the noises that wake him are a bit more interesting than random traffic.

It comes from the road above. Starts with someone shouting, then screeching brakes, skidding tires. A car door opens and slams shut. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing asshole? Get out of the road!" shouts a gruff masculine voice.

Several other car horns honk as they drive around the apparent obstruction. 

"Hey mister, I don't want any trouble. I'm just a hitch-hiker passing through. But I noticed that woman asleep in your passengers seat-" says a second voice, older and feminine with a raspy drawl.

Another car door slams. "Why don't you mind your own business?" A third voice, much like the first.

"Oh, wow, there are two of you! I didn't, um, didn't see you in the back… Well, gentlemen, your friend there looks like someone I met last night at a gas station, and she was traveling by herself at the time. I just want to know if she's okay." Voice #2 is timid but insistent.

"Your friend had some car trouble. We're giving her a ride to the mechanic." Voice #1 explains.

"Yeah, so beat it," adds Voice #3

"How about she tells me that herself?" Voice #2 challenges.

By this point Peter's drowsy mind and body have quickly decided to move. He turns with the intention to crawl over Tony only to see his eyes wide open - he's also listening.

"She had a long night when her engine broke down. We want to let her sleep," replies voice #1.

"But she told me she was headed…"

Peter starts scaling the underside of the bridge. "Hey!" Tony stage whispers.

"What? I'm just making sure things are ok," Peter whispers back.

"What happened to laying low? We don't need a Spider-Man sighting right now!"

"I am laying low! I promise!" Peter is back to climbing before Tony can say anything else.

Voice #2 continues as he gets closer. "...so if you know her, tell me her name. Surely you can do that?" 

_ Laying low. _Peter repeats to himself. Rather than follow the sounds of the confrontation directly, he sneaks further back. Traffic has hit a lull, and the bridge is almost deserted.

"_ Why you, bitch _." Voice 1 curses with the click of a handgun.

"Whoa there sir. I don't - where did everyone go now? - Isn't anyone - Help!!"

Peter ducks and rolls behind the car, a green station wagon. Glancing at the mirrors he can see the woman in question, slumped over unnaturally in the front.

"Shut your mouth!" Voice 3 steps forward from the car. 

"You say you're a hitch-hiker right? Why don't you pipe down and get in the car with your girlfriend, and we'll give you a ride?" Voice 1 says venomously.

"Please I-"

"I wouldn't take them up on that if I were you!" Peter yells out, concealed behind the station wagon. 

All three of the voices respond with confusion.

"It's nice of you guys to offer, but I don't think you're going anywhere in this piece of junk." Peter reaches a hand under the car and pulls at the first thing his hand finds purchase on. The metal whines and gives way, leaving him holding a sizeable chunk of tailpipe. 

"I mean look at this thing! Is this even supposed to come off?" He tosses it to the side, then does the same to the car's bumper. He kicks firmly at the back axel, and the left wheel turns askew when it bends. "I really hope your mechanic is in walking distance, because _ man _ you're in trouble!"

Both of the men curse. #3, being closer, runs around to the back of the car, but before he gets there Peter squeezes himself underneath the bed. He watches #3's feet as they shuffle about looking for the unknown vandal. Just as they seem to notice the odd shadow beneath the car, Peter snatches both of his ankles. The leverage angle is odd but he just manages to lift the man off the ground, enough to rob him of his balance, and then he pulls inward. The man falls backwards with a yelp and then stills when his head meets pavement.

"Henderson?" #1 calls out, finally lowering his weapon from the good samaritan as he runs to his partner. Peter ducks out the opposite side of the car and runs to the nearest bridge tower. He needs to draw him further from the bystanders and potential onlookers. To his luck, there are few, but he can't be too safe. 

"Red rover red rover, send bad guy right over!" He beckons, drawing footsteps his way. #1 arrives with his pistol drawn and raised. 

Peter strategizes. _ Low profile. No webs. No spider-climbing. No eye contact. Hopefully no gunfire. _

#1 turns the corner of the tower to where he expects to find his target, but Peter scales around on the outside. He approaches the man from behind and moves quickly to stay in his blind spot as he whips around searching for him. He gets almost hilariously close, until again his shadow betrays him, blatantly noticeable in direct sunlight. Just as Peter had hoped, the man turns over his shoulder to face him. Peter exploits the contorted stance: ducks low and plants a foot between his legs to impede him from turning further, grabs the dominant wrist with his right hand and extends the arm so that only one hand grips the gun, and boxes his ear with his left fist. Now disoriented, #1's grip on the gun is loose enough for Peter to press and twist his hand until he drops it. The man's left reaches back around, fist aiming between Peter's eyes. Peter dodges to stand centered behind him again, but does not let go of his wrist. #1 counters with an elbow jab, which Peter absorbs by stepping back into a perpendicular stance at the same time. From here, he roundhouse kicks his left temple, and pulls the extended right arm down as he rotates. The man falls to his side, and Peter staddles him to keep him prone. He pulls #1s jacket down and twists, drawing both arms into his back. Now completely pinned, it only takes one more swift jab to his jaw, and #1 is out cold.

Peter is securing the jacket into a knot around the man's arms when he hears screams and a scuffle behind him. He turns to see #3 - his partner had called him 'Henderson' - hoisting #2 over the edge of the bridge, her feet kicking and scraping for purchase. Peter forgets his original plan to not be seen and sprints directly at them. The kind-hearted woman must have stayed near the car out of concern instead of running away, and Henderson must not have hit the pavement as hard as Peter thought. Even stunned and unarmed, the man easily overpowered #2 with his height.

Peter is fast, but the distance he put between himself and the car now works against him. Despite the dread in his gut he leaps into the air. But as his feet leave the ground, Henderson utters a final curse and drops the woman. He turns to Peter with a sick grin.

With no other option, Peter lands at the edge and hooks his feet into the metal bars, pushing a web-shooter from up his sleeve into place down his wrist. When he looks over the side, however, he does not see the falling target at the distance he expects. He sees not just one body, but two, surging up back towards the bridge. It's Tony, he realizes, wearing his repulsor boots and gauntlets. He is facing away from the bridge, towards the woman whose look of complete shock probably matches Peter's own. As they ascend rapidly Tony turns his head so Peter finally catches the smug look in his eyes.

"Catch!" yells Tony, as he throws #2 to Peter's waiting arms. Henderson, meanwhile, was moving to tackle Peter until he witnessed the woman he just dropped flying through the air. Before he can process the sight, the man finds himself face to face with a charging hand repulsor. The percussive blast sends him flying across the lanes, into the opposite railing. The sound he makes crashing into the metal is like a bell ringing, and Peter highly doubts he'll be getting up again.

Peter turns his attention back to the woman, whom he is still dangling over the water, while he stays attached to the bridge only by his legs. 

"Tuck your arms in, please," he instructs the woman, who takes a second before complying, stiff with shock. He holds her tightly as he flips backwards onto the bridge. He gently places her down, seated on the pavement. His brain kicks into first-responder mode as he scans the woman for signs of injury.

"Are you hurt, ma'am?" She shakes her head.

"Is it alright if I touch you, so I can check your condition? I won't do anything without a verbal 'yes' from you," he speaks calmly.

"Y-yes."

Peter lifts her arms, pats her clothes to check for punctures or abrasions, hears a steady pulse, and smells no blood or gunpowder. Her cheek is red and her neck might bruise in a few hours, but nothing serious. He feels her forehead, but on a warm summer day it's hard to tell if she's going into shock by just body temperature. 

"Can you tell me your name?" 

"Betty," the woman says.

"And what year is it?"

"1987.”

Peter bites back the urge to correct her, the words slicing through a paper-thin screen in his mind that let him be Spider-Man again as the details of his own situation come flooding back. All the blood in his head drops into a pit in his gut as he glances around, dreading the sight of witnesses to his unmasked face. Two cars are turning down the bridge in the opposite direction, but the only other witness he sees is Tony, who is walking towards them from the station wagon with the unconscious woman draped over his shoulders. It strikes Peter just how young she is; she couldn't be older than a college student. Betty rushes over with concern and Peter follows.

"I think she'll be okay. Butch and Sundance are tied up in the back, but I cracked the window for em." Betty reaches and Tony sets her down into the older woman's arms. 

"Do you know her?" he asks. Tony is sans-armor with the duffle over his shoulder, a pinched concern on his face that makes him look older.

"Not so much," Betty shakes her head. "But we met as we were passing through the same pit stop. Bonded over why we both became runaways. We're both headed anywhere but home."

"Tell me about it." Tony mutters. He ducks his head as a car passes on his left, and Peter shrinks behind the group to avoid being seen.

"Will you be able to take her to a hospital?" Peter asks.

"No problem at all," Betty replies confidently. She adjusts her hold on the girl to hold her in a piggyback carry. 

"And you can do whatever you want with these," Tony adds, presenting a handful of items: the keys to the car and both men's wallets.

"I'm not sure 'bout what I'm looking at, whether these are evidence or a 'finders keepers' sort of thing," Betty chuckles, "but I think I'll let Jody here decide when she wakes up." She gingerly worms a hand free to accept them.

"Yeah, um…" Tony adds, "we don't… if anyone asks - if you want to tell the police… "

"Then I'll just tell them how I beat up those two wimps myself," Betty smirks, a childish glint in her eyes. 

"Thank you," Tony and Peter exhale in unison.

"But, word of advice?" she adds "You look awfully fresh-picked, but you should know cops don't care much what happens to drifters either way. Suppose I did tell em Van Damme and Rocket Boy showed up to kick ass, they'd only ask me to count the bodies for their paperwork. The streets will pick us off if we don't protect our own - though not all of us act like it." She pauses to look between the two of them meaningfully. "Whatever you kids have… you better hold onto each other. Some people, well, I choose to see a powerful blessing there, and it'll save you in more ways than you can figure. Just be careful."

Peter feels the blood rushing back to his face.

"I'll be sure to put that on a bumper sticker," Tony coughs, shuffling quickly to the railing. He gives one last nod to Betty and swings his legs over. "You coming, princess?"

Peter stammers at the speed of Tony's exit and the implications of the older woman's advice. 

"Are you -"

"We'll be alright young man, I promise. You've already done more for me and her than fate was offering today." She turns to head down the street. Peter watches her back for a few seconds before reluctantly vaulting under the bridge again to face Tony, preparing for the mother of all told-you-so's.

"I'm so sorry man, I wasn't thinking-"

"Dude,"

"-I thought I had him, but I was-"

"Peter,"

"-someone could have seen us, you could have gotten shot, all because I jumped in-"

"PETER!" Tony jostles Peter out of his frantic rambling. He finally takes in the appearance of the brunet; sweaty and heart pounding, but the look on his face is no longer scowled. In fact, a tension has left his face that Peter hadn't noticed Tony was holding onto since he broke him out, maybe longer. Instead, Tony is smiling. 

He's not just smiling, he's beaming, like he's holding back laugher. Peter can't suppress his own thoughts: _ He looks so beautiful. _Tony’s mouth moves as he says something.

"What?"

"I said," Tony repeats, "that I'm starting to see the appeal of this hero thing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic isn't dead y'all! Part of why this one took me so long is that I realized I have a lot more I want to fill in this story than I originally planned, and once I started going off-outline it got crazy. For example, this chapter actually turned into two chapters because I wanted to give Tony a more authentic reason to be a hero besides saving Peter and himself, since self-preservation is one of the problems I have with Tony Stark's character in canon. And the more I add, the more I want to re-do earlier chapters to justify what I'm adding too. I even wrote almost a whole chapter that has some of the events of the last couple chapters, but from Tony's perspective. TBH I'm not sure if it's worth it to give you that or if you'd rather we move on with the plot more. It took forever to post this but I'm glad I waited, and I'm very grateful for everyone who sticks around and reads this anyway.  
Please share your thoughts with me in the comments! I cherish all kinds of feedback!


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